Ductalk

Comparing the first nine races from Rossi's two years on the Ducati Desmosedici...

2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale S first ride..

Barrelling down the straight at Cadwell Park, this race track is way too narrow for the missile of a motorcycle I'm riding. It oozes power from every nut and bolt, with a snarl so fierce from the exhaust - it's racebike loud - it won't pass any of the noise limits from the other UK tracks. Ducati's Panigale is insane! Ducati is renowned for launching state of the art motorcycles. Its 916 is still hailed as one of the most iconic and groundbreakingsuperbikes of all time. Well for 2012 it's done it again with its stunning 1199 Panigale packed with technology .

Hpr the rest click HERE

 Nicky Hayden at the San Francisco D-Store today

This year Ducati was the featured marque and the theme was F1's and the derivitives from the F1 - Montjuich, Laguna Seca, Santamonica and the TT2 and TT1. The text is in Dutch but the photos speak for the depth and quality of the event and the Ducati display. 

The Ducati museum in Bologna was also present with a large tent where a dozen bikes in the race history of the brand were exhibited. All V-twins, starting with a replica of the 750 racer (#16) which Paul Smart in 1972 the 200 miles from Imola won. Next up was the winner of the 24 Hours of Montjuich of 1975 (# 9) with its narrowed lower crankcase for extra ground clearance, and equipped with lights for night stages. The list of racers was closed by a team of 750SS Spaggiari and an NCR endurance racer. On the other side of the tent stood the TT1 and TT2 F1 which Marco Lucchinelli won the Battle Of The Twins race at Daytona in 1986. The four models were represented by 888, 916 and 999

For lots of photos of classic Ducati's click HERE

MDF Travel Shops, the retail company of Meridian Duty Free, has been awarded a five-year contract to run a Ducati store in Venice Marco Polo Airport.

This will be the third Ducati airport store opened by MDF Travel Shops, following an agreement with Ducati Motor Holding to manage the latter’s flagship stores (apparel and merchandising) in the travel retail market in Italy and abroad. The other two stores are located in Rome Leonardo da Vinci Airport and in Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport.

For more click HERE

 WRPhoto goes Biking
werner roux || photographer
www.wrphoto.co.za

 With nine races and placed on file and the first half of this exciting MotoGP Championship 2012 ended, the pilots of the "Premier Class" are ready to take the second season of intercontinental flight to arrive in California, for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix. Unfortunately, However, the Pramac Racing Team, Hector Barbera, was forced to miss the first round in the American calendar, because of his recent accident, during a training session that caused the fracture of tibia and fibula claims. In these Hèctor day is starting rehabilitation immediately after surgery Sunday and, arguably, can not run for at least 4-6 weeks, as confirmed by Dott.Mir, the chief of plastic surgery that has worked. Hèctor will be replaced by its countryman Tony Elias, former pilot with a red and white livery, the Pramac Racing Team. Tony, in fact, during the Green Energy Team in 2008 while riding a Ducati, succeeded in conquering two podiums at Brno and Misano Adriatico. The international debut of the young Spaniard takes place in 2000 in the 125cc World Championship. In subsequent years, Tony has been a constant presence in the world championship. The highlight of his career would reach in 2010, when he became World Champion of the newly formed Moto2. Unemployed for a few days after the split of the consensual contract with Team Aspar Moto2, Tony will have the opportunity to demonstrate its potential, in the beautiful and difficult track at Laguna Seca with the Pramac Ducati Team.  

For the rest click HERE

The odometer spins easily through everyday life, accumulating tens of thousands of clicks on workaday commutes and grocery store runs. In contrast, motorcycle journeys are personal mileage, forging more intimate connections between man, machine, and road. They remind us of who we are, and during the best of rides, who we will become.

This particular thousand-mile ride unfolded in Tuscany aboard a definitively Italian motorcycle over the course of a week. The excursion was organized and executed by Edelweiss Bike Travel, the Austrian outfit whose 30 years in the touring business has previously focused on BMWs and Harley-Davidsons.

The inaugural run for the Ducati/Edelweiss collaboration kicked off in Bologna. Known as The Red City for its crimson-hued roofs, Bologna is also a metaphorically apt place to begin a motorcycle adventure. Its labyrinthine colonnades radiate from a central wheel, a hub - not to mention it is also home to the manufacturer's global headquarters, where every Ducati is born before being shipped to dealerships around the world.

For the rest click HERE

(auto translation from Italian)

Jeremy Burgess is leaning on a crate outside of the pits at Laguna Seca , looks at his boys to open the boxes and the "house" of GP12 for the weekend is slowly taking shape, with red panels that hide the gray concrete walls. " I love coming to this track - he says, enjoying the sun warming his skin - it's more than twenty years since the first time we came here and never drop a drop of rain . " To make the perfect weekend would also serve a great performance from Valentino. " I was thinking earlier this week that will fight for the top two positions - reveals a surprise - I could not do otherwise. Then maybe after the first free practice session I change my mind , "he concludes, laughing.
The Doctor's crew chief looks ahead, no revelations about the future of its pilot, but he knows what use to make a step forward in performance. " This year we started with a completely new bike - he explains - the problem is that from the first race has not changed enough . Perhaps you would have thought about the steps of developing close during the season. For example, a new frame at Le Mans, then at Mugello and so on. Important news that Valentino could try and do their own signs. Instead the frame, which was made ​​very quickly, has changed little, on weekends we rarely try to unpublished components. Rossi to serve as new, different frames for example, but also other less important details, so that when the pilot enters the box and asks: what's new? I can tell you: one plate of the fork, four new screws ... would serve to keep him motivated . "

Read more: http://www.gpone.com/index.php/en/201207257701/Burgess-Rossi-vuole-piu-sviluppo.html#ixzz21iNvyS8Z

In 2011 Ducati.net hosted a dinner on Cannery Row. A great time was had by all and part of the deal was the Cannery Row holy grail, our own parking lot.

This year we are doing it again but we’ve given some thought to that parking lot and what better use for a parking right on Cannery Row for a couple of hundred Ducati’s on the big MotoGP weekend Friday night than to play some Ducati music for all to hear? Here’s the details:

Ducati.net is throwing a party for all our Desmo Owner Club friends! Join us at El Torito, in Monterey, CA on Friday, July 27th for a fun evening with fellow DOC members from around the world. PARKING LOT IS OPEN TO ALL DUCATI’S, ALL EVENING. SOUND CONTEST ENTRY IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL DUCATI’S

For all the details of how to attend, click HERE

Contributed by Adam Morin

This marks the thirteenth consecutive year that Tissot has served as official timekeeper of MotoGP. In honor of this partnership, Tissot has released a series of limited edition chronographs (as it has in the past). While the two quartz variants are limited to 8,888 pieces, this automatic version is even more limited at 2,012 pieces. The T-Race MotoGP 1012 Automatic Chronograph contains the C01.211 movement, made exclusively for Tissot by ETA. It combines race-inspired good looks with solid build quality at a reasonable price. We first reviewed a watch with movement inside of a Swatch Automatic Chronograph here back in 2009.

For those unfamiliar, MotoGP is the top level circuit of motorcycle racing. Unlike many other racing series, these bikes are engineered specifically for racing and do not have street-legal production variations. This year's MotoGP World Championship will be held at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on July 27-29, 2012. If interested, I highly recommend the 2003 documentary Faster. Just be sure it's not the Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton action flick of the same name. I haven't seen that one but you are not likely to see the same motorcycle racing.

For the rest of this review click HERE

Sure to make some lucky buyer the envy of the entire Rossi fan club, we don’t know if it’s the ultimate (that would probably be a series winning GP bike) but we are absolutely certain it’s among the biggest, at 38 feet. Every so often a VR46 motorhome pops up for sale and according to the seller, this is his 2004 Monaco Windsor PDQ, all done in exterior shades of blue and white. And, it’s on sale for a very reasonable 75,995 UK pounds. From the TravelworldRV website:

“Imported by us new and supplied to Mr Valentino Rossi! Our long standing customer and buyer of the ultimate. Vale would visit Travelworld and always ask what was the best motorhome he could buy? In 2004 this Windsor was the answer. Every box was ticked and this Windsor has been serviced regularly with ourselves.”

For more on this story, and links to his latest paddock palaces, click HERE

Nicky Hayden on Sunday night’s edition of SpeedTV’s Wind Tunnel, when asked by Dave Despain what his plan was for next year:

“For me personally, uh, things are looking good. You know I love it at Ducati, it’s really uh, I really enjoy my team, I’ve got a good group of guys, so we don’t have anything final yet but we’re quite far in uh, some negotiations and really there’s not, uh, we’re not too far apart so I’m hoping that uh, you know, during the summer break after Laguna we have two weeks off before Indy and uh, I hope that we can have an agreement there.... For the rest of what Nicky Hayden had to say click HERE