Ducati Monster Forum

Update: I have been told by Slattery's that there will not be an auction.  Some remaining stuff will be sold from their warehouse at Moorabin Airport i believe.

as of EOB today, Moto One workshop is shut.  the much anticipated (everyone in has asked) clearance auction is on Nov 13th, a thursday.  not sure what time so don't bother asking me.  the administrators didn't seem to know either, and Slattery's are running the auction i'm told.

dunno if the shop is actually open between now and then to try to buy any gear or parts, but the workshop is shut - i have to go back next week and get my toolbox, etc.

the performance stuff is still up - best to go to www.bikeboy.org as that's where it'll end up anyway.

Where are they located?

Dam just bought my boots  [bang]

Well i still need some things like GP gloves [thumbsup]

sorry to hear that Brad, I'm sure a man of your considerable skills will find work quickly...you know what they say: a good mechanic is hard to find....and a hard mechanic is......well pretty frickin scary really!

what did you think of the 748 that Moto one had just bought?

Brad,
sorry to hear that, hope you have somewhere suitable to go to.  If not, I reckon I can get ya something here in Perth!  TOMORROW  :)
whats gunna happen to the info you have on the moto-one website? Would you class that as yours or the property of moto-one?
should I start copying it now?

http://www.guzzi.com.au/performance// (http://www.guzzi.com.au/performance//)

That's where it is currently.

Brad I've been real slack and still owe you some t-shirts, PM me a new address and I will get them to you.
Sorry to hear of the demise of moto-one and I am sure someone of your capability will land on his feet.

Hi Brad.

Thanks you for your assistance, and information, a great service to all us novices.

Yes be there for auction.

Does this mean my Moto-One T shirt is now a collectors item!!!! Ha Ha.

Cherrio.

Madalf.

Sorry to hear about the closing of the shop mate, and a big thanks for the manwell for MyLittleDucs bike. Its interesting to know a little of the bikes origins. [thumbsup]

Dont forget to let us all know where you have landed when you find work. Good Duc people in Melbourne are a bit thin on the ground.  :(

Good Luck. [beer]

(please read in a tough cockney accent):

what are you Simon, a f#cking parrot?  [laugh]

fk your quick, cant make any mistakes here he he

this is the one I meant to send...... apparentlly if you press tab while typing it auto posts, even if your not finished!
 
Yeah brad sorry to hear, and hope it all works out for you and you get all your owed etc.

   

Ditto that, Keen to keep using your expertise and advice.

thanks brad for all your help too we need a good wrench in tassie  [thumbsup]

shame to see you having to move on brad, will your performance pages still be available? are they being hosted anywhere? or should i be copying to my desktop madly?
decent ducati techs are thin on the ground everywhere so i'm sure you will land on your feet soon enough, take a holiday first though!!

cheers,
paul.

location: 1432 Dandenong Road, Oakleigh, VIC, 3166.

748?  the '97 model?  it went to queensland last week.  i did a 20,000k service on it, seemed ok.  they ride really nicely when set up right.  sweet motor, just a bit slow.

the web site stuff is all my work, and i don't imagine tony would try to get any sort of copyright over it as there's no point and i'd prove pretty easily it all came from me.  it will stay where it is for now and then i might move it, but it'll be updated with current info.  apparantly it'll cost a couple of hundred $ a year to keep it going, which i'll certainly do if i do something on my own.

which i might or might not, it will be posted on the site, not sure yet, no point asking as i have no room as of now - i live in a single fronted hawthorn house with about 1m between us and the next one and my monster lives outside.  so no, i won't be working from home, etc.

altho i have done some sums and i figure if i worked 40 hours a week on my own i'd charge out 30 at most due to interuptions, etc and setting up in oakleigh or clayton (where there's a few factories of the size and style required) i'd be paying $400 a week rent and then add power and insurance and all the other crap and i don't know how far $80 an hour would go.  which is probably about what most would consider to be too much for a small shop because for some reason the small shops are meant to be cheaper than the big ones.  and in all my time at moto i can really only think of one customer who really meant "i don't care how much it costs, just do it right" and the last bill i gave him (engine reco) made him say "faarrk" several times.

plus i'd possibly be inundated by people with old shitbox guzzis and bevels because people who will work on them are now seriously non existant, especially if bob goes back to the hills.  and any sort of bmw.  $150 an hour for the shitters should keep them away.  how much abuse do you reckon that'll get me?

possibly best to go and work for someone else i'm thinking.  otherwise i might just end up one of those grumpy eccentric types who spends 30 or so hours a week talking to himself.

did i send you something?  sorry, no idea who you are.

Sorry to hear about this Brad. Best of luck sorting work and life out quickly...

If you need a hand keeping your website up let me know, we can host that for you for a lot less than a couple of hundred a year...

big

Man, a couple of days without looking and all hell breaks loose.  Spider's bike gets nicked, Brad's workplace goes under, what's next?

Brad, you probably don't remember me either but you did some troubleshooting on my bike and managed to sort it out without any dramas.  If you were closer to Hurstbridge you'd probably have seen more of me.
Best of luck for the future and I certainly will be another one interested in where you end up.

Cheers.

All the luck to ya, Brad!.  :)

Keep up the good work.

My lazy ass will send ya a PM....

Brad,

You don't know me, we have never met. I have found your performance notebook brilliant, and a great guide full of useful info. Hope it all works out for you. Someone of your talents should be alright.

Hang in there, ducsport

+1

++!

the performance stuff will end up at www.bikeboy.org

Thanks Brad. We are counting on you to keep up the good work.

One day you will look back on this and think that it happened for a reason. I know you will land on your feet.  [thumbsup]

You must've just about been due for "Long Service" at Moto1 I reckon Brad??  ;) [thumbsup]

I reckon that you could probably set up your own shop and make killing!!??  ;D [beer]

which is quite literally the $64,000 question of the moment.  will a large enough group of people back up the hype with cash over a prolonged period?  a killing i think not, an income similar to working for someone else probably, up to 30% more possibly.  but not a whole lot.  and how many pieces of shit will i have to work on to do it.

altho it seems most other options are also going to involve some saturday work and longer hours or travel time, but i'm sure that will be of little comfort once the decision is made and it becomes reality.  the longer i fence sit the better someone else's grass is looking, frankly.

compounded by the fact that i would only go out on my own if i had all the gear to do it properly and getting all the moto one gear requires putting in a bid for said gear prior to the auction thursday week.  and then spending all the other money required to get going.  i'll be around $25,000 in to it before i open i'd think, plus time not earning.  it'd be stupid to open before the second week of jan at this point i'd think, which is two months away.  that alone will cost me $7,000.

after 14 years and 4 months at moto one i'm a bit lost without the place.  tomorrow will be the first day it feels real.  i even get to go to centrelink.

Hi Brad.
I hear you, after 19 years 11months and I don't want to know how many days in the only job I've ever had, the only thing that keeps me at my place is that dreaded comfort zone!
Get an ABN and contract your services/skills/experience.
Cheers
Madalf...the CV kid.

if anyone was going to come - don't.  there isn't an auction.

Did you get all the gear at a good price Brad?  ;)

yes and i guess it depends on who you ask.  perhaps not my wife, but then again she's just playing the voice of cautious sense and reason.

afaik there will still be rider gear and spare parts available on a "whatever's on the shelf" basis, but you'll need to ring and find out.  i haven't been there for a week.

Congrats, I guess! Got any firm plans about where and when you'll be opening up on your own? (plans you're hapoy to tell us about right now, any way?)

big

Brad that's great stepping out on your own is never easy but there is good support here.
Someone to trust with your bike is never easy to find but once you do, you tend to stay well that's my opinion anyways.

Good luck for when you do open.

cheers
Matty...

Fantastic news Brad! you've got my support - all I need is a bike to bring you!  [thumbsup]

+1 to that. [thumbsup]

Great to hear that you will continue to wield the spanners.  [moto] [beer]

I feel an opening piss up, err I mean sausage sizzle coming on,  ;D [clap]

Congrats Brad - Well done.   [thumbsup] [wine]

All the best Brad.  I'm sure you'll do really well.  You have a top reputation behind you.   [thumbsup]

I had some idjit (and no Brad I can't remember who) say that Brad can be difficult to work with cause he's a perfectionist, I replied "HELLO! that's exactly who I want working on my bike!"

I may have found someone to do my 10000 service then, congrats brad  [thumbsup]

that's great news for you Victorians. all the very best Brad, and whilst I know it's not really worth that much cause I'm 1000kms away, I'll do everything I can to spread the word!

Shit I just thought of something... if I do enough kms between now and the supers, I may have to drop the bike in for a bit of cam tweakin and dyno tuning before riding back!

Sooooo.........

Will Black Bikes be like Black Books??   I love that show ;D ;D

Ita

Hi All.

Congrats Brad, look forward to continued service. [bow_down]

Hey Spider,re-comment some people would know a good thing if it dropped on their head.

Cheers

Madalf

Thats good news Brad, you 've got my support and my business aswell,  [thumbsup]

and my pocket runneth over.

i think i've mellowed to the point where i say to people "you tell me what you want to do and that's what we'll do".  of course, i'll tell them if i think they're wasting money, but i'll still take said money all the same.

there's a somewhat subtle difference between perfectionist and well intentioned paranoid time waster, probably seen to be the same thing by most.  someone called me eccentric one time too, which i think i responded somewhat negatively to.

Hey Brad, any ideas/preference as to what location you would like to set up in??   :)

I dunno about smaller places charging out at less. My brother, a Porsche factory trained mechanic, left the dealership and is now working in a much, much smaller operation. They charge out at more than the dealership, and still get the work. Don't undersell your skills. As per the omen thread, I'd be very much considering bringing my bike down for its next service, which would be June next year.

The guys up here manage to cock something up each time, the partner and I can time a trip down with a visit to the inlaws. Having a mechanic for a brother, I don't mind paying when the work is good. I just resent paying $100/hour & stupidly marked up parts for make the beast with two backsed-up work. The independant guy who was doing good stuff here moved on to a scooter dealership (actually where my partner's scooter is) and no longer has all the tools (they're at his old place of employment)... plus they're so busy they don't need a shtibox Ducati to work on.

It's a pity that you're not in Hobart... my old man's a solicitor and is generally pretty good at looking after mecahnics who work on nice bikes.

my thoughts on location are based on the following (assuming it happens):

current ducati workshops (keeping in mind i'll be working on some other stuff too) - city, richmond, kensington, ringwood (soon to have danno) and greensborough.  i don't want too much local competition.  nor do i want to be way out or hard to get to, as altho many people say customers will travel to me based on reputation, more will settle for someone closer to them or more convenient.  i'm not falling victim to delusions of my own granduer here, because i simply don't believe that reputation will translate into enough work and therefore income.

rental - inner city (richmond) is twice medium distance out (oakleigh) pretty much.  and $250 a week could make a real difference.

surrounding area - it needs to be fairly heavily industrial because of the noise, especially if i get to set up a load cell of some sort for tuning, but not full of flash new factories sort of thing.

close to a freeway exit.

close to a train station and other public transport.

i live in hawthorn, so not too far from there so i don't spend hours travelling.

and, really, oakleigh is looking pretty good.  existing customers are used to coming to the area, it's fairly good road wise for testing without being obvious, it's far enough away from everyone else, good industrial area very close to the centre of town sort of thing, good rent for what you get.

moorabin has more surrounding small industry and suppliers - bolts, bearings, that sort of gear, but getting there from hawthorn would shit me no end (i hate warrigal road) and the train station is a long way from the industrial area.

depends on availability now tho - it needs to be a practical building.

parts are another hard one.  genione parts if i buy then locally (which i really have to) i'll get 10% on probably.  a couple of independant guys have told me they just generally add 35 - 50% to their buying price and that's that, less for higher priced items like panels, etc.  so genuine parts start to get comparitavely expensive compared to the dealership competition.  that's a hard one, especially if i stick to $90 / hour plus gst, as things get expensive really quickly and guys who just ring up and enquire baulk at high quotes for service work.  it used to happen a lot at moto one.  i'd quote someone $1500 for a 4v 20,000km service or nearly $1,000 for a 2v 20,000km service and they'd almost choke.  don't know what others were quoting tho.

i'd rather over quote than under quote with shock at pick up, but it costs you work and potentially a new and returning customer.

That's right about what I'd expect to pay at a dealer or reputable shop up here in Sydney.

One thing Gowies does which you might want to consider is doing a "valve clearance only" service, explicitly _not_ doing the oil change and other scheduled stuff - Mike quoted me around half the "full service" price, while making it _very_ clear that I was expected to know and assume responsibility for the rest of the scheduled service items... That turns into a useful saving for people who're happy enough changing their own oil and brake fluid, but not quite confident in shimming desmo valves at home...

big