Tuesday 29 August 2017

I Have Always Wanted A Ducati,

either brand new straight from the shop,


 or a custom build like this one from Germany’s Kaspeed shop,  

 the bike’s a product of three members of the same family, there’s Jimmy and his twin brother Mick and their dad Karsten, they’ve been building bikes in their ‘Kaspeed Custom Motorcycles’ Saxony workshop for a few years now,

 this particular Ducati is the 2001 750SS Super Sport, which has been thoroughly worked on, before being disassembled, the rear frame of the bike was extensively modified: the lines were tightened towards the rear end, shortened and simplified so only a single rear tube remains. “We wanted to create a seamless connection between front and rear bodywork from the front fairing all the way back to the seat cowl,” says Jim, so starting at the pointy end, they found an aftermarket front fairing that was shaped with a classic, racer-like look, it was then adapted to take a smaller headlight, “In the middle of the bike, we cleaned up the factory gas tank to add some flow, then for the rear end, a hand-built seat cowl was shaped from scratch with all the mould fabrication done in-house”, and that’s not all; the final lay-up with carbon-fibre, Kevlar and fibre glass was also done at the workshop,

 with all the major structural work completed, the process of stripping the bike down began, they refurbished all the worn parts and integrated the new electronic components, “The exhaust manifold was then polished and we fitted two GP-style exhausts with custom mounts to underline the modern racer intention”, when it came to the Ducati’s paint, the goal was to keep the scheme simple so as to let the bike’s shapes speak, so for any Ferrari owners reading this you should recognise the paint, it is a Ferrari Rosso Fuoco (or fire red) which involves a sophisticated three-layer process, “We actually do all our paint work professionally in-house, since one of us is a trained automotive refinisher”, the engine and frame got a new layer of paint as well; the original colours were used on the frame and wheels while a contrasting dark grey metallic paint was chosen for the engine,

 the bike’s new headlight has a LED parking light ring to give the front end the modern touch they were aiming for, two retro gauges from Daytona were installed, the wheels are now hugged by Pirelli Diablo Strada tires, what a beauty! if you want to keep up to date with Kaspeed you can follow them on Facebook or Instagram, and no I am not on commission, would I like one? Absolutely!


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