Posts Tagged ‘ GT1000 ’

New Hampshire Meetup

I am a member of the Boston Sport Bike Meetup.com Group. I have only been able to go on two rides so far but they have both been fun.

I have been “planning” on doing a New Hampshire trip on my own this summer. I even have the route all mapped out and loaded in my GPS. But I wasn’t getting out the door. I was unsure of whether to do it in one day or two and I wasn’t sure how much money it would cost and so on. It would have also been my longest ride to date and I may have been intimidated by the miles in my route.

One day I see a scheduled meetup to do a slightly shorter version of my planned trip. I decided that since I wasn’t able to motivate myself to go on my own, I would make myself go on this ride.

We met in the morning, north of the city. It took a bit of getting used to for me to adjust my timing to allow for many riders, up to 15 at one point. I normally ride solo, and as we all know traveling in groups can be a bit of a hurry up and wait situation. There was a bit more futzing around than I would have liked and lunch was much longer than I would have liked but I enjoyed riding with the group and therefore the slight inconveniences were worth it.

I used my Garmin 60CSx to map my route. At Lincoln, NH several of us decided to head home while the rest continued on a bit more.

My Route:

View Larger Map

For a graphic showing the approximate speed and elevation of the ride go to me Garmin Connect activity page.

The Kancamagus is a lot of fun. It is almost as good as so many roads in Northern California. If it weren’t for the cars it would be a fantastic road. I put together a shorter video of some of the twisties. Recorded using a U-bolt camera mount and a Flip Mino. The bike you see most of is Tim’s Ducati 848. I, of course, am on my 2006 Yamaha FZ1.

I hope to get up there on another ride this summer. Hopefully following the route I have mapped out. I would be more than happy to do a smaller group ride of maybe 4 to 6 people. It seams that the best size for motorcycle trips is also the best size for project teams.

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Thanks for reading and happy riding.

2010
08/03
CATEGORY
motorcycle
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ducati pricing

For a little while now I have been interested in the Ducati GT1000 as a possible for my next motorcycle. Since I am a little obsessive about certain things, motorcycles is one of these things. I researched by looking at the specs and reading as many reviews as possible. I also researched the GT’s cousin, the Monster.
I noticed that the reviews approached these two bikes very differently, yet the price tags were very similar. The new Monster 1100 (particularly the S model) is packed with up to the minute riding technology (adjustable suspension, single sided swing arm, alloy wheels, great breaks). The GT on the other hand is loaded with newish, yet out of date technology (non-adjustable forks, standard swing arm, spoked wheels, good breaks).
To get to the bottom of it, I compared the two bikes via their spec sheets. I then went to an OEM parts website and priced the various parts that were different and I came up with this spreadsheet. This spreadsheet showcases how much more the components for the Monster costs as compared to the GT1000. I didn’t price out the engine, since there are too many parts to price.
At the end of it all, the cost difference was approaching $4000. That being said, I discounted the end total by 50% to account for retail markup. This reduced the cost difference to roughly $2000.
The conclusion is the Monster is either underpriced, or the GT1000 is overpriced. There may be some strategy behind this. The Monster has loads of competition and therefore can’t be priced too high. The GT1000, on the other hand, has very limited competition. Therefore they have the ability to price higher and also Ducati doesn’t want to appear too cheap. They are a luxury brand, after all.

My ideal bike would have the ergonomics of the GT1000 but the components of the Monster. That bike doesn’t seem to exist. In which case I want a $2000 coupon on the GT1000.
I intend to contact Ducati about this, I’ll update this post if I hear back.

2009
07/13
CATEGORY
business
motorcycle
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ducati gt1000 vs monster (updated)

Why I did it:
Since the the two bikes are so similar on the spec sheet it is difficult to see the differences in ride and comfort.

How I did it:
I downloaded photos of the GT1000 and the monster from ducati.com and lined them up in photoshop. I used an approximation for wheelbase in order to scale them properly. I then traced some of the key elements (forks, seat, handles, pegs) using red for the GT1000 and yellow for the Monster.

What it shows:
This image shows that the GT1000 has a much more relaxed riding position. This is of course to be expected. I was a little surprised by the fork angle since on paper they have the same rake angle.

Update: added XR1200, R1200R, and my current bike XL 883 to the image. Due to the slightly differing photo angles, this data is less than scientific.

2009
07/07
CATEGORY
motorcycle
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