ducati monster - adventure bike conversion?

I exchanged a few emails with the fellow from South Africa whose bike was on the AdvRider forum a few years ago. It was the first Monster Adventure bike that I saw and I think it pre-dated the Terra Mostro. Of course it existed for me years before but only in my imagination - never actually got out of my dream world and built one. Here is a snip from one of his emails, I got his permission at the time to share his comments.

Quote

Just to re-cap – I come from a bit of an off-road past and after 5 years of on-road riding on Ducati, was quite surprised to see that Ducati had not built a dual purpose bike. The Multistrada came close, so I bought one in 2005, fitted off-road tyres (with great difficulty as the rim sizes are not suitable), and I took the bike over the Lesotho mountains and down the Sani pass, with a bunch of guys from the BMW GS stable. The Ducati handled remarkably well, although the forks were bleeding at the end, and the zero body protection, alloy rims, and integrated tank and seat, were not at all appropriate.

When the Monster 695 came out in 2006 – 168 Kg dry weight, flip up (plastic) fuel tank with the battery and air-box sitting high up under the tank, and Air-cooled, and a Twin engine, I could not resist. I wanted to see if this bike could be converted for dual purpose use. South Africa has thousands of miles of gravel roads, which we have to ignore on our Ducati road bikes. Yes I could easily have gone and bought a KTM …, but that thrill of riding a Ducati down to that remote town at the end of the gravel road was too strong, so I went for it.

Here's a quick summary of all the items to happen on this conversion.

Off-road wheels – you have to find a set of wheels that matches the measurements between the back sprocket and the back disc brake, keeping thse two items (which are part of the back wheel) in line with the front sprocket and brake caliper. We looked at all the brands and by chance the KTM 950 wheels were the closest fit. Here and there, we had to make up some spacers - for the front forks, and to take up some slack at the back. The front forks have 2 disk brakes to line up aswell.

Forks – once you have the wheels, you have to find a set of forks that will fit into the standard triple clamp on the Ducati – otherwise you must replace the triple clamp with one that will fit onto the Ducati Frame and the forks you desire. We ended up having to have some forks built from various bits, as you must also match the caliper brackets for the disk brakes too (our first set of forks arrived with the Brembo calipers sitting in front of the forks ! ).

The length of the forks is a huge factor – you want to get the right geometry look for the bike, accommodate the new 21 inch front wheel, and still be able to reach the ground with your feet. All off-road bikes (usually with tall forks) have narrow saddles which help your legs to reach the ground. The Monster has a fat, wide saddle which forces your legs to sit wider, and thus shorter – so you must sit on the bike to get the fork length decided.

Handle bars – our first forks were so long we had to raise the handle bars with raisers, but it was not enough, so we had to have bars made up with a bend that would accommodate the long forks sticking out of the top of the triple clamp. The bars actually came out ok, because it allowed a much better upright sitting position.

Back shock – this does not have to be adjusted or replaced, but I found the Monster's shock to be too hard (like all Ducati shocks), so we had a replacement built while we did the front forks.

Side stand – only once you have the fork length and back shock settled, you can make up the side-stand – which is much taller than the original one on the Ducati because of the bigger wheels and fork length.

Chain length – going for an off-road bigger back wheel (18 inch) usually requires a longer swing-arm. We have kept the original swing-arm (I don't intend to go jumping) but we added a chain guide fitted underneath the swing-arm to take up the chain slack, as we also ended up with a new chain which was a few links longer.

Speedo & odometer – this is where we really got caught out – on the Ducati Monster 695 the pickup for the speedo and odo is on the back disc brake. With the new KTM 950 back wheel comes a different brake disc. While it fits the brake caliper beautifully, the steel bolt-heads that provide the magnetic response as they pass the pickup are not in the right circumference line, and they miss the pickup's magnetic field altogether. After hours and hours of experimentation, we eventually fitted some custom-made enlarged bolt-heads that entered the pickup field area, and gives us an almost-accurate speedo reading and odo kilometer counter.

Exhausts – I had decided to fit raised pipes, for styling purposes, and more practicality, and we had to have customized pipes made to match the headers on the bike. The front header was changed (we used the header from a Multistrada 600 which runs next to the engine and not below) to give us the desired ground clearance under the bike. The 695 Monster also has an exhaust gas analyzer (the Lambda sensor), fitted into the front cylinder exhaust header pipe, so this had to be custom fitted into the new header we had chosen off the Multistrada.

Bash plate – this is a non-essential extra, but just like the Suzuki twin engines (on the TL, and 650 and V-Strom range) the oil filter on the Ducati sits below the engine facing the front, almost inviting any reasonable-sized rock or obstruction to hit into it - so a bash plate is a good idea. Ours was hand-bent from 4 mm aluminium sheet, and although it's not too professional, it still allows the air-cooling and does the protection job required.

Foot Pegs – after all the work, the eventual test riding revealed that the Monster, like most road bikes has very high-positioned foot pegs, and this turned out to be uncomfortable for my tall-ish legs. So we had the foot pegs lowered. This was a custom hand-made job, whch involved refitting the foot brake hydraulic fittings on the right side and re-fashioning the fittings for gear selector on the left. Quite a job, which also resulted in the removal of the brackets which support the foot rests for a pillion passenger. So I don't have back foot-pegs on the bike now, but will make a plan in time.

Warning – the foot pegs position can also affect the design of the side stand and the position of the exhaust pipes.

Luggage rack – this was just fitted to give it that open road look, and we use the standard Venturi rack for the Monster range which just bolts on.

Front Screen – also an addition for looks, and actually for wind deflection on the highway (works pretty good). We used a after-market screen for single round headlights, with home-made brackets.

What else - the bike could still use some light crash bars to protect the tank –as you see on the KTM 640 and 990 adventure range. And maybe a headlight protector – (despite the appearance the Ducati Monster's headlight is actually made of a light plastic compound).

It's taken us over a year to do the work – but not because its so involved – other priorities and business just got in the way. But we're there now, and it's time for some riding !

Cheers,