Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

I have only owned Japanese bikes throughout my life. In street bike form, I've owned

'85 GPZ550
'85 Interceptor
'93 FZR600
'96 CBR 600 F3
'01 CBR600 F4i

They were all great bikes, but I always had a special place for my F3. It probably had the most comfortable seating position and just felt better than the others. I even preferred it over the F4i.

Anyway , all of those bikes are gone, and I have wanted for as long as I can remember a 2V Ducati. I've looked at a couple of older Monsters as well as the SuperSport. Looking at bikes from the 99-03ish range. These things have finally come down enough where I could afford one. I have always been somewhat detered by the fear of reliability, maintenance costs and/or difficulty, clutch adjustments, and also the desmodromic valvetrain.

Would it be a terrible idea to buy one of these beautiful bikes? I'm not a rich guy who can afford throw a couple thousand dollars to Luigi at the Ducati dealer every 6,000 miles to have valve clearances checked and adjusted.

As much as my heart desires one of these Italian masterpiece's, would it be in my better interest to skip it and just buy another metric bike?

Greetings:

If you buy a Duck, you may live to regret it. But if you don't, you surely Will regret it. How much can it take to learn Luigi's valve adjustment procedure? This is why we have the Internet. Desmo isn't that complicated.

I will have to own one someday. I've just seen some of the maintenance bills on these things. I've adjusted valves in all sorts of automotive engines , but there is just something that is scary about that valvetrain. Not to mention timing belts. Seems that a normal 12k maintence is usually around $1000-1400 which could buy a lot of things.

Greetings:

It's only money. If it doesn't buy happiness, it has no point. May I suggest you wait for one that has maintenance records showing the last full service done recently? 12000 miles is enough time to decide if you love it enough to spring for the Big Bill again, research how to DIY, or sell it.

That's a good point. A Duck might cut into my scooter time though...

It's the cost of the parts that's a lot. My rsv is not cheap to replace anything on. The maintenance involved isn't hard it's just time consuming. There are some specialty tools i have for the valves and clutch etc. If you get one and need to borrow some of the tools i can help out. Some parts can take months to get from italy as the US doesn't stock much. Working at a vespa/aprilia etc dealer we have to order a lot from italy.
A 695 is an amazing engine for the size and nothing out there sounds like a duc. Valve adjustments are at or around 7500 miles. Every 7500 miles.