I purchased my first Ducati in the beginning of November 2009. It was a mostly stock 2001 M750 Dark...
I slowly became obsessed with riding again. I hadn't ridden a motorcycle in almost ten years and a Monster as a reintroduction was probably the best choice I could have made, it just makes riding so much more fun! Shortly after my purchase I signed up for this thing called the DMF, and having no experience with owning a Monster I was completely amazed at how easy, and addicting, mod'ing a Monster was. I began asking every question I could think of, "what can I do about my mirrors?", "how do I get everything black?", "how do I make my bike a dry clutch?", "can I turn my bike into a single sided version?". I had all these questions with no real clear vision of what I wanted the bike to look like. So I started with the simple things. I had the tail chopped at the dealer, I changed the turn signals, and painted the sprocket cover, belt covers, and headlight assembly. With no idea of what to do next I just focused on riding and a lot of it. I think I put almost 3k on the clock in just over 3 months!
One day I saw a thread that was about a ride up Angeles Crest Highway and back. Wanting to get on some twisty roads I signed up. Turns out it was only three of us on the ride but it was still a great ride. Like I said, I was just kind of getting back into riding so I took it slow that day and enjoyed the scenery more than anything else. After that ride I started "practicing" my riding techniques so that I wouldn't be so slow on the next ride, I would ride Topenga Canyon Road back and forth trying to get better at everything I could and little by little I became more confident. After about a month there was another thread about riding up ACH to Newcomb's ad back. On top of just wanting to ride that road again Bacon Junkie, the lead on the first run, said Duck-Stew was going to join us on the ride. I was really excited to meet him after seeing everything he had done on the Flightcycles website. We met, we rode, and we ate bacon.
We were heading back down ACH when it happened. I crashed. Lucky for me Duck-Stew was riding behind me. By the time I got the bike up on the side stand Stew had pulled over to help. He managed to fix the bike enough for me to limp home.
I had a broken ego, but more importantly, a broken bike. And so began the search for replacement parts. Gear shift lever, clutch lever, clip ons, but I was most upset about the tank. It was scratched and dented. I ended up getting a tank from one of the guys along on that ride. In the time it took me to order and install the parts I needed I came across a story about a guy named SacDuc and his Monster 750. After taking a closer look I realized the tank on his bike was the tank I was just about to install on mine. I was so excited that my bike was about to become a part of DMF history!
Still, I have no solid idea of what direction I want to take my bike but little by little I will make the climb.
Thank you Bacon Junkie for being the lead
Thank you Duck-Stew for your wisdom and inspiration and zip ties
Thank you duc_poultry for the tank
and
Thank you SacDuc for this little piece of DMF history
Here are some pics of where I'm at so far....
