Gray skies hung over us as we made our way to Virginia Beach for my first official ride on the Ducati Scrambler Fasthouse, but that didn’t darken my mood any.  I couldn’t wait for my practice, though I was nervous because the crash bars aren’t yet added.  Seven months riding and still no drop—knock on wood.

When we got to my parents’ garage, my boyfriend set to the seemingly simple task of adding a battery charger for the Ducati.  The motorcycle comes with a battery tender port; however, it does not connect to the SAE connectors, and Revzilla no longer carries the converter.  So the tender had to be connected to the battery itself which simply means removing the seat, undoing a few screws, connecting, and tightening everything back down.

Luck was not our friend.  First, the seat would not come off.  It was snagged at the front and required Bill to use brute strength to get it off.  It was snagged on some kind of bracket that was not seated properly down in the cavity.  The next error was the battery cord plate was also not seated correctly over the terminal, keeping the cover from resting flat once Bill had wrangled the battery tender leads onto the battery.  The last, and worst because it is a very difficult fix, error is the receptor for the retaining screw for the cover was stripped not allowing the screw to tighten.  But the bike was rideable which is what matters the most.  Though after seeing this shoddy work, we definitely won’t head back to Bayside for any more motorcycles.

Of course, since the Scrambler had sat for a week battery untended, it was difficult to start.  Bill solved the problem by plugging the bike into the tender in the garage to start it up, and the engine roared beautifully to life.  We left the bike running while he suited up, and we headed over to my practice street.

Once I was suited up, it was my turn to ride.  My first challenge was tilting the bike upright off the kickstand on the canted street.  Heavier than the 310 by almost 100 pounds wet, I felt every bit of those extra pounds as I struggled to straighten her out.  But I managed it and I started off paddling down the road.  Paddling means I was using the friction zone of the clutch to ease the bike forward while my feet walked along the ground.  But on the Ducati, it is hard to keep the pace slow, and soon my feet were up on the pegs and I was cruising in first gear.  I successfully executed my first U-turn to the left, something I was too nervous to do last weekend, rode up the street and repeated my success turning to the right.

I settled in to practice U-turns and shifting from first to second.  I noticed quickly that the Ducati gears are higher than the BMW’s meaning that I could go higher speeds in lower gears—and by higher speeds I mean 15 mph.  As I was practicing up my street, a bicyclist turned next to me, interfering with my ability to execute my U-turn.  So I rode to the stop sign, turned, and went up the street for a bit, getting to third gear before turning back around.  Emboldened by the thrill of the slightly higher speed, I went for a circuit over half the neighborhood, loving every bit of the horsepower and torque in the 803cc motorcycle.

Returning to my practice street, I wanted a short break as my hands were getting sore.  The trouble is I can’t find neutral; in fact I can’t even move the shifter when I’m stopped and have to use my hand to lift the shifter into neutral.  I am frustrated by this, but Bill says it’s actually normal on motorcycles to have this problem.  He of course can find neutral after just his second ride, but he tells me I’ll get there.  And I don’t doubt I will.

Just as I finished my break, Bill noted some small rain drops on my front fender.  Sure enough, the rain was arriving early.  I looped through two more sets of U-turns before calling it quits.  As we set back for my parents’ house, the rain seemed to taper and I thought maybe I could’ve squeezed out a bit more practice.  But after we had the bike garaged, the rain started coming down harder, so I had made the right decision after all.  We’ll be back over on Wednesday to install the crash bars, so I don’t have to wait a whole week to play with my new motorcycle.