The Song of the Sausage Creature

[Monsterlover]

I've always loved this article from Hunter S Thompson. The wild, over the top description of his experience on the 900ss just makes me smile everytime I read it.

It makes me think back to my own first experience on a Ducati. A Monster 750 Dark.

I had been riding a 250 Ninja for a bit. Not long but long enough to be comfortable riding it around and loving it.

I had a chance to ride a friend's M750 and took it. Such a dramatic departure from the Ninja in every aspect!  The look, the sound, the aggressive "here comes my size 12 at your face" riding position. The sound. You get it.

I got to a straight section of road and gave it a good handful of throttle.

Oh. My. God. It was like what the stars do when Han Solo threw the switch on the hyperdrive. The torque!!!  My young brain was firing on all cylinders and wanted more!

It wasn't long before I bought an M900ie on eBay and found this forum. Well, technically the old one but you get it.

I owe so many smiles, laughs, good times,  friendships and empty wallets to Ducati for creating the Monster.

The 900ss had always been a bucket list bike for me. My m900 is long gone and there have been a couple other Ducatis over the years.

Seems like I either have one, or I've sold it-regret it- and am looking for the next one.

Anyway, I'm in the next one phase, having recently picked up a 900ss fe and am in the process of reviving it.

Here's a link to the Sausage Creature article - https://hooshmand.net/song-of-the-sausage-creature-archive/

I'm curious what YOUR first experience on a Ducati was like...

[koko64]

Had a HD and was riding with a mate when we swapped bikes. He had a 907ie. I was amazed at how light it was.  Soon I was comparing the 95 M900 to the Buell Lightning and Sportrider magazine said the Monster was better, so I got one. My eyes were opened to razor sharp handling and powerful brakes while my ears were awakened to the intoxicating sound.

[Duck-Stew]

I grew up around torquey V8’s in Detroit.  I especially liked them paired to manual transmissions...  So, after having my a$$ handed to me when I tried to drag race an early 80’s Honda CB900, well I had to learn to ride a motorcycle!

Fast-forward a few years and I picked up an ‘83 Kawi KZ750ltd.  It was cheap, black and FAST!!!  But, it had no torque, frame was all flexy and the brakes were shyte dispite having three discs.  Weather was poor in Detroit for riding and so were the road conditions so I didn’t ride much over the next 5-6 years but when I did, they were always Japanese I4’s from the 70’s & 80’s cuz they were cheap.

A coworker had a red 93 M900 and he said I could ride it around the parking lot but if I crashed it he would beat my ass and make me pay for it.  Didn’t crash, but the marriage of a manual transmission, a ton of torque and a motorcycle was too much.  I was hooked.

[Speedbag]

My first Ducati experience was on a friend's early M900, which had head work (porting), FCRs, and exhaust. Had to have been mid to late 1990s. Whee! I remember the exhaust note when caning it like it was yesterday.

Like I said elsewhere recently, I kick myself all the time for selling my '94. I should have kept it and put up with its increasing glitches, or (better yet) blown it apart and bettered it entirely.

[Monsterlover]

I just remember the torque. When I was riding that m750 it was like the more I turned the throttle the flatter my eyeballs got. It was a one-to-one ratio.

[He Man]

Sounds like the the M900 is a legendary Monster.

If we are sharing first exps..... i was in florida and someone I recently met who was 18 years old had a M750 in yellow. I had no idea what it was and I was too afraid to really talk about motorcycles but it was such a badass looking bike and he said it was this brand called ducati and it was a monster. Sure why not.

I found a dealer that had a used 1995 M900 for $4500 bucks. This was in 2007. Apparently the bike was punched out to 944 and had a road racing chrome tank, guages cowl etc. I bought the thing not knowing anything and rode the bike home. The bike mechanically was not a beginners bike. You dont go punching out 900 cc twins with shitty starters and batteries without knowing how to wrench. My god that bike was so difficult to start! The carb wasnt tuned either and I didnt even know how a carb functioned at the time. Within 6 months of ownership the starter relay fried and the bike would continue to cycle with the keys out of the ignition. Long story short, I burned out my starter motor and had my first taste of "making mechanics out of riders since 1977".

It was probably the most expensive problem i had at that point in my life aside from paying for room and board while at college. I fixed the starter motor for $500 bucks and got the bike back up and running. In less than a year of learning how to ride, I ended up riding the bike back home to NYC from Florida. The bike was great. The ride was great (atleast at the time, i would never want to do that on a monster nowadays). Eventually the R/R fried and caught fire mid ride. If anyone knows about older monsters, the RR was located at the front of the bike below the head tube. The RR was smoking and some tape had caught fire. Long story short, i had to pee on my own bike to put the fire out.

I sold that M944 on ebay for $2500 bucks and shipped it off to California. The bike caught fire again and was parted out.


6 months later i bought a 2006 S2R1000 (in 2008 if i recall). Still have that bike today!

[needtorque]

Hello all, been a while (years). My first monster experience was walking into the movie theater in 2001 to watch the first Jolie tomb raider and they had a monster dark in the lobby. Bought an 01’ m750 soon after. Found this forum around that time as well. Absolutely loved that bike. Have since had several other bikes and recently (two weeks ago) bought a 2018 monster 1200 r. Still love the monsters (but not the 2021).

[stopintime]

.....(but not the 2021).

Nobody does, but it will sell well anyway.

[triangleforge]

My first experience was an itty bitty M600 that was a step up from the Buell Blast that taught me to ride. Sold the blast and went looking for whatever was next and was particularly keen on the SV650. Out of curiosity, I checked out this Craigslist M600; the seller tossed me the keys and I started falling in love when I first thumbed the starter. Then underway, the way this story was going to end was clear from the very first seconds. Unlike the Buell, which felt like it had a hinge in the middle that let the front and rear wheels do pretty much whatever they wanted mid-turn, the Duc dove into turns and held or changed lines with little more than me thinking about it. Torque wasn't overwhelming (M600, after all), but a nice step up from the Blast. As I rolled back into the seller's driveway, I saw him chatting with two other potential buyers. It felt great to kill the engine, take off my helmet and say "Sorry, gents, this bike's sold."

[Commando]

Love that article, it came out not long after I had discovered Hunter S. Thompson, so mixed with the fact I already had old motorcycles, I thought it was a brilliant piece of journalism.  It reinforced the fact that while Japanese, liquid cooled inline 4's were deadly fast, an old air-cooled, 2-valve twin in the right chassis was more than enough to catch your thrills.  And the best bit was you'd do it in style.  On careless days when I was younger, and I'd ride out just to find a railroad crossing that could get me some air, it was 'Song Of The Sausage Creature' that was egging me on.  My Norton roared not unlike a Ducati, so it helped me live in the moment as if I were Hunter.

Being a vintage bike guy, the Supersports and Monsters were always appealing to me. I almost bought a brand new Monster in the late 90's but instead bought my dream bike, a Norton Commando.  Still have a Norton to this day, and until recently, it was my only street bike.

Early 2000's, and I left my soul crushing, yet well paid job in IT, and got low paying gig at a Ducati dealership.  I finally got to ride these amazing machines and they were everything I'd ever expected them to be.  My main demo bike was an S4R and I freakin' loved it, I rode that almost exclusively every day, but also sampled just about every other model aside from the M620 and 800SS.  Though the performance of the 4-valves was exhilarating, the rawness of the 1000DS engine spoke to me the most, and provided me with all the power I'd ever use on the street.

A move to Australia and then buying a house, etc, etc, kept me from getting a Ducati of my own, especially since I still had my Norton and several other old bikes.  Fast forward to now and I've saved up enough cash to buy my ultimate Monster, an S2R1000.  I love it, and it's a great stablemate to my Commando, being very similar in characteristics but with the convenience of being modern and much less demanding maintenance wise.  I'm loving every second of it.

[koko64]

  And welcome to Australia.

My first Monster (and Ducati) was a '95 model I bought new.

[MadDuck]

I got started on motorcycles in the late sixties and progressed to being a motorcycle mechanic before moving onto wrenching on cars ( more money with cars ) Rode & owned bunches of bikes but no Ducatis ---- Sold my last bike in the mid seventies but continued riding on & off for years on other friends bikes or the occasional bike that came through the car shop. I watched with wide eye wonder at the evolution of sport bikes. In 2004 a buddy of mine got a used 94 900 Monster and bugged me to ride it. I was sceptical as I remembered that the single cylinders were just not that hot performance wise or reliability wise (blasphemy!). Rode that bike for 3 miles around the neighborhood and was mildly impressed. Six months later he bugged me again so I rode it 25 miles round trip into town and back on various roads. It was the most incredible bike I had ever ridden. I had to buy one after that. 1997 Monster with the mild heads. Totally hot rodded that thing every which way except replacing the heads and didn't bore it out. FCR 41'S and a light flywheel and more! Ended up getting a 999 and later a 848. Don't have a Duck now but those days were the best of my motorcycling days so far.