Unreal – or maybe too real

Nobody riding on the street should own the motorcycle I just bought.

This is a Ducati Street Fighter. It produces 155 horsepower at 9500 rpm and weighs in at 373 pounds.

That power to weight ratio is lethal.

The thing will do in excess of 200 mph stock.

First gear will take you from 0 to 45 so fast your eyes will melt.

Fortunately, it is civil, if balky, at under 4,000 rpm. I’m hoping it gets smoother with some miles. But once it hits 4,200 rpm, watch out. It will jerk you head back and there better not be anything in front of you.

I’ve had it up to 6,000 rpm, but only in second gear. It tops at 11,000. At 6,000 rpm in second gear you are doing something like 55 mph.

I’ve had third gear as low as 30 mph, but it complains about it. You can pass anything on the turnpike in third gear.

I’ve had it in top gear at 70 on the turnpike – notice that this is a legal speed. I did this in order to break it in. At this gear and speed, the engine is not even in the power band.

I can’t imagine what a less experienced motorcyclist would do with this machine other than lose it and die.

So why in hell do I have this machine that calls itself a Street Fighter but is nothing at all other than a track bike?

Well, it is because I always wanted to own the finest of something, and if I can break this horse – learn how to ride it – it will be a great machine.

The suspension is so far superior to anything I have ever ridden on the street that it is ridiculous to compare. Remember, this is bike number 12 for me.

It faintly reminds me of a BMW – perfectly balanced and intuitive – you think your way around corners. Only on the Ducati, the bike says “I’ll do this, but if I did it 20 mph faster it would feel better.”

And it is water cooled. That means you can take it out and ride all day long and it won’t complain. I could point it at the Tail of the Dragon and be the fastest bike out there and not question the 500 miles it took to get there.

I have three bikes capable of traversing the United State.

Why do I have this one?

Maybe it is because of Texas.

There are parts of Texas where you could do 200 mph and nobody would be there to see you.

Can you imagine getting a ticket for being 130 miles an hour over the limit?

Oh, Wow

Some guy just called me and wants to put one of my photos in a book.

He is doing one on JFK and wants my shot of the Honey Fitz, JFK’s yacht that is docked in Palm Beach, from this blog.

He says that JFK started writing his memoirs on one of those old audio tape things that recorded on a belt. He got it from JFK’s secretary, Jackie didn’t want it, and he will include both the transcript and a voice version on a DVD in the book. He says it is about 12 pages long.

I’m going like “What a find! Way cool.”

Anyway, he says my shot of the Honey Fitz is better than the historical stuff he has come up with.

So there you go. The power of blogging and carrying a digital camera.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging or carrying a digi. I’ve been motorcycle riding. It isn’t as easy to stop and shoot a photo as when you are on a bicycle. But it has its charms.

I rode to Stuart today on my Ducati. I was doing 55 at 5000 rpm in third gear and that was less than half of what that motorcycle can do, not counting the other two gears that I didn’t even get into. I looked at another Ducati that has 50 percent more power but a different seating position thinking it would be easier to handle. Can you imagine 150 horses on something less than 400 pounds of motorcycle? Zero to 60 so fast your eyes bleed? I don’t need this but I am drawn to it.

For those of you who don’t get it, don’t bother trying. Motorcycle riding is like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. You don’t do it if you have dependents.

And you don’t care if you die doing it.

You take precautions, but realize that weird things happen. And you would rather go that way than die taking chemo.

My dad died because he wanted to. He was 98. He had enough of feeding birds from his wheel chair. Every day he could walk, he spent time in the gym. I can’t imagine what a disappointment it was for him when his body failed to respond and he couldn’t get out of that chair.

He pulled out his cath and died of resulting complications.

My dad’s sister, a wonderful woman who brought hundreds of Eskimo children into this world as a midwife in Alaska, who started a school for midwives in New York and who ended her career at the College of Charleston, also took her own life. She kissed us all goodbye and went in for heart surgery she had no intention of recovering from.

I respect the way those people died.

I hate that you have to cheat the system to have a little dignity.

I’m having way too much fun to think about my time yet. But when it comes time, I’d like to do 150 mph on a motorcycle just once.

That should do it.

I don’t believe this

60,000 troops in Afghanast Afthanaxt Afgahanstiani – asshole of the world?

What are we doing?

There are high schools in Palm Beach County where the literacy rate isn’t much better than Afghanastan. AFganastqana. What ever.

I don’t care about rebuilding Afgahanstianidan.

It was never built.

It isn’t worth one Marine.

Get our people out.