Sports: Re: [DucatiST] Re: "The Italian bike starts....

Don't you just love a happy ending? I've had similar experiences where I was looked down upon for having a supposedly unreliable "older" machine, like my '63 Rat H-D or my '69 Norton Commando. The Norton is long gone, but the H-D still has a place in the garage and will hopefully be back on the road next year. I wish the Norton was still with me.

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 3:56 AM, Allen <hotairrider@yahoo.com> wrote:

Your story reminds me of when I was on a ride from the UK to Prague and Budapest on my nearly-new 1998 ST2. I had only bought it a few months earlier and I was riding with a friend who was on his ten year old BMW K100RS. Before setting off, he had expressed some anxiety about whether the Ducati would break down and hold up our trip because everyone knows how unreliable Italian bikes are, right? Well of course it was the BMW which slowed our progress with its unpredictable starting. One time we had just filled our tanks, the BMW didn't restart and he became convinced that the problem was his fuel pump and we spent a hot couple of hours in the sun while he drained the tank and tested the pump, but no joy. He put it all together again, hit the button and to our amazement it started, but we had similar incidents for the whole trip. It turned out to be a faulty soldered connection on a printed circuit board, only really sorted out after we got back to the UK. The ST2 performed flawlessly of course, if anything running better after a few thousand miles of thrashing around Europe including 100+mph autobahn cruising and a couple of days of heavy rain. Total maintenance consisted of one chain adjustment. I tried hard to hide my smugness but I'm not sure I succeeded!
Allen

> ...the Japanese one doesn't." Â :-)
>
> I couldn't help myself from uttering those words to an incredulous rider at the "local" rider hang-out yesterday when out riding with a couple of friends on Japanese meteric crusiers...you know...theÂ bullet-proof, reliable ones.
>
> We had a nice breakfast and went to restart our ride, only my buddy's Suzuki, wouldn't start...battery was barely clicking the solenoid. Bike started okay for him all morning so he was not amused to say the least, but being surrounded by a herd of experienced riders, he was not in dire straits.Â
>
> Having heard diferent things about bump starting EFI bikes, I thought I might first park as closely as I could along side him to see if the lengths of 10 gage cables I have attached to my battery for charging might reach the terminals on his to charge his up a little, but it was a no-go. By this time several intersted-in-helpingÂ riders had gatherered around, and one looked at me while pointing to my bike and said, "What, she won't start?"
>
> So, I had to say it, "The Italian bike starts, the Japanese one doesn't" in order toÂ enlighten him and the others who had gathered around a little bit. :-) Scheez, when will the perception of Ducati unreliablity ever end? He *automatically* thought the red bike was having the problems. :-)
>
> Oh,Â the EFI Suzuki bump started very easliy with the help of several other riders pushing it. :-)Â Â His battery is probably on its way out, but who knows?Â Could be a electricalÂ problem...Japanese bikes are famous for them, LOL...Â ;-)
>