Sweethearts

1980 Ducati 900SS. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

My first “Sweetheart” was my 1980 Ducati (“dew-KAH-dee”) 900SS pictured above.
I always say it was the motorcycle I never should have parted with.
I bought it used from Peter Strohmier (“stroh-MY-er”), replacing the motorcycle I learned to ride on, a 1975 850 Norton Commando, my first motorcycle.
The Norton was irksome and unsatisfactory; nice to look at, but a bear to work on.
Just installing the battery was a struggle; guaranteed skinned knuckles.
I happened to peruse an inside junkyard in Rochester; foreign car parts inside an old factory building.
Parked inside was the owner’s 900SS, silver.
It was gorgeous. Here at last was the motorcycle I was trying to make my Norton be — mainly its seating-position, a racing-crouch, much like the 10-speed bicycle I also had.
I had tried to do that with my Norton; rear-set footpegs, and clubman bars.
Such an arrangement on the Norton was silly; the Norton was too standard.
The owner’s Ducati SuperSport looked fabulous; despite the motorcycle being silver with a light-blue fairing.
But it wasn’t the full fairing you now see on crotchrockets.
It was just a bulbous fiberglass fairing that shrouded the headlight and dashboard.
The engine was still exposed.
The SuperSport Ducati was very basic; little more than what was required to go fast.
It was a racing-based variation of the Ducati 750cc V-twins, introduced in the early ‘70s.
Ducati was a postwar Italian motorcycle manufacturer.
Previously Ducati had made single-cylinder four-stroke motorcycles. That 750 was its first V-twin.
Many of the single-cylinder motorcycles had desmodromic (“dez-mo-DROME-ik”) valve actuation; a cam to close the valves as well as one to open them.
A 900SS was Desmo.
Ducatis were single overhead cam driven by a gearset; a vertical tower-shaft driving bevel gears.
It looked elaborate, and was.
The single camshaft had cams for opening and closing each valve — there were only two; it was hemispherical head.
Since the cams didn’t close the valves airtight, a small hairpin spring was employed to help close the valves.
But they weren’t the heavy valve-springs ya usually see — which could float if worked quickly enough.
Desmodromic valve actuation was employed on Mercedes-Benz racing cars, and could be much more abrupt. Ya didn’t hafta ease it to offset valve float.
Strohmier had his 900SS in the want-ads.
I rode my Norton over to see it.
We wheeled it outside and fired it up with its kick-starter.
No electric-start; the 900SS didn’t have that.
WHOA! Had to have it. What a sound! Each exhaust-pulse was a cannon-shot that shook the ground.
Strohmier wasn’t sure he wanted to sell, but was committed to riding competition bicycle. He was afraid he might crash the Ducati and injure himself.
I forget what I paid for it.
The Strohmier bike was one of two Ducati 900SSs purchased from the motorcycle store right up the street from where we live; Cycle Enterprises II, but at that time something else.
But it was the better motorcycle. It had cast magnesium Campagnolo (“Komp-en-YELL-oh”) wheels, same manufacturer that made fancy-dan Campagnolo bicycle equipment.
Cast magnesium wheels were lighter than cast aluminum; what ya usually see.
It came with two smallish Dell’Orto (“del-OR-tow”) carburetors, 32 mm.
Each carburetor had a separate enriching choke circuit for starting, but one was plugged solid.
Full of goop, I guess. It wasn’t working at all.
But the carburetors were pumpers — they had accelerator pumps, that sprayed additional gasoline when ya goosed it.
Most Detroit automobiles also had accelerator pumps. Quite often motorcycles didn’t.
So you could enrich the gas for starting with the accelerator pumps.
So I had to replace one carburetor, or so it seemed. (Maybe I shoulda soaked it.)
A bunch of Ducati zealots suggested I install giant 40 mm toilet-mouths; better to do 140 mph.
A mistake; not amenable to my kind of riding, which was mainly in the city.
Smallish carburetors get the intake-charge speed up. Open a toilet-mouth, and it takes a while to move the intake-charge.
I was on the Thruway once, and got passed by another guy riding two-up on another 900SS. He still had the stock 32s.
I wicked it up, and fell farther behind — single rider too.
It was them toilet-mouths. They weren’t suited for 60-70 mph.
I started calling it “Sweetheart;” it was gorgeous to look at.
I used to park it on the sidewalk in front of our house in Rochester so I could stare at it.
I even started talking to it. “Hiya, Sweetheart. How-ya doin’?” I’d say as I entered my garage.
But riding it was near impossible.
First was starting it, which was with the kicker — it wasn’t electric.
Sometimes it fired on the first kick, but sometimes it didn’t. I deduced from experience the best place to kick from was on the seat.
But then the kicker would rebound and slap you in the calf.
Just starting it was a guaranteed bruise; plus an additional 5-10 minutes.
Compare that with getting into a car and just driving off; about a minute.
I learned from those Ducatisti the way to work that kickstarter was off the bike to the side. —That way it didn’t punish you.
The Ducati also had electronic ignition — a secret; I never knew how it worked.
But the drill was a removed sparkplug had to be adequately grounded — which it was when installed — lest the electronic ignition to that plug fade.
The tuning drill was to do one cylinder at a time — plug removed from the inactive cylinder.
I had it running great for a while, but then a sparkplug blew out — the cylinder-heads were just aluminum castings.
Every time ya torqued a sparkplug, ya chewed out more of the threads; so eventually they were all gone, and the plug blew out.
I had it fixed with helicoil — a steel thread-insert in the cylinder-head; which is what it shoulda been originally.
So here I am about 40 miles from home with a plug blown out.
It ran on just one cylinder, so I rode it home on that, probably with the blown-out sparkplug not properly grounded — it was dangling.
It ran messy after that; probably the electronic ignition to that plug had faded.
Try to get replacement parts.
Impossible.
My final mistake was to replace the rear shock-absorbers, which had become spaghetti.
I ordered new shocks, but they were for a touring version of the Ducati V-twin that had a higher ride-height. The shocks pushed the rear wheel down into the pavement when it was elevated on the centerstand.
The motorcycle needed its valves adjusted, which was a so-called religious experience requiring shims.
Most valve-rockers adjust with adjustment screws, but not a Ducati Desmo.
Recent motorcycles also use shims, but usually don’t need adjustment.
Adjusting with shims ain’t easy. It requires taking the entire valve-gear apart. This was supposed to be karma for a Ducati owner, but I didn’t have time.
I farmed out the valve adjustment — I had dropped the engine out of the motorcycle after the sparkplug blew. Took the whole kibosh to a motorcycle mechanic I knew.
The motorcycle still ran sloppy after all he did; probably a result of the faded ignition.
The motorcycle also felt funny.
It was designed to have a low center-of-gravity, so I always felt like it was carrying a heavy load way down low.
It also had a lot of steering rake in it so it would track well at speed.
Made it steer like a truck.
It also had limited steering. I dumped it once in a corner. I had it banked for a sharper turn than it could do.
Finally I put it up for sale, but only after purchasing a replacement motorcycle; a water-cooled Yamaha RZ350 two-stroke. (The Ducati was air-cooled.)
My obsession was with light weight, which the RZ was.
My mistake was trying to make it a Ducati. I went with clip-ons and rear-sets; and thereby made it gangly and almost unrideable.
It would have been better left alone; essentially a road-bike.
By then the Ducati was burning oil on startup; probably oil was puddling in the cylinders.
The first guy interested bought it anyway, oil-smoke and all.
(The oil-smoke wasn’t constant; just startup.)
His intent was to rebuild it; which was what it needed, but I didn’t have time.
So-long “Sweetheart.”
Interesting to me was about six years later I bought a new Yamaha FZR400, which was everything the Ducati wasn’t.
Except not as gorgeous, and didn’t sound like a Corvette when wound out.
I.e. Not a “Sweetheart.”


Scarlett. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Sweetheart” number-two is our current dog, Scarlett.
Scarlett is Irish-Setter number six — a rescue dog.
A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.
Scarlett is over four — we got her at age three.
She had been kept in a puppy-mill, and produced two litters of pups.
But the owner gave up producing Irish-Setters, and turned the dog over to rescue in Ohio.
We had her spayed — no more puppies.
Scarlett is an extremely high-energy dog.
But I had just put a similar dog to sleep, so I thought we old geezers could handle her.
So far, so good.
But she’s bigger, and slightly stronger.
In a puppy-mill she never knew the joy of hunting.
Now she does; see any critter of any kind at all, and it’s hang on for dear life.
She nearly has dragged me into a pond a few times, but hasn’t succeeded yet. Long-underwear and dungarees have holes to show.
It’s my wife that calls her “Sweetheart;” a bit strange to me, but she’s entitled.
Beside being high-energy, she’s a really nice dog.
Our keeping her is a bit unfair, since us old geezers have a hard time keeping her entertained.
But on the other hand she probably wouldn’t be as entertained with working stiffs.
The fact we’re both retired, makes it more likely we can take her somewhere — hunting.
So “Sweetheart” it is.

• “Clubman bars” are handlebars bent in a shape that approximates “clip-ons.” (See below.) Clubman bars attach in the same clamps regular handlebars attach to (atop the steering-head), but swoop forward and down toward welded elbows. Short handlebar stubs are welded on there. The location and bend of them puts you in a racing-crouch.
• The “Thruway” is the New York State Thruway, Interstate-90.
• “Steering rake” is the angle at which the front wheel attacks the ground — usually determined by the angle of the front-fork tubes. Severe rake increases front-end stability at high speed, because doing so makes it harder to steer. —An example of severe front rake is a chopper with an extended front-fork, and laid-down fork tubes, which can hardly turn into a driveway. Works great on arrow-straight open highways.
• RE: “Clip-ons and rear-sets......” —“Clip-ons” are short handlebar stubs that clamp to the front downtubes. So installed they make the rider sit in a racing crouch. (The Ducati had clip-ons.) “Rear-sets” are rear-set foot-controls — behind where they usually are next to the motorcycle engine. They are the gearshift and rear foot-brake. (The front-brake usually works off the right handlebar lever.) Rear-sets also include the footpeg your foot rests on, and locate your feet rearward.
• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.”