What have you done on your bike today?

SHarper said:
Sold my VW Transporter last week, so I’m looking for a car around the £10K mark, anyhoo, I’ve cogitated and searched and I quite fancy this.

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Now, in the list of criteria, getting in and out of it and the comfort whilst I’m in it are quite high up, can anyone suggest an alternative?
This has come up too, but something is telling me it'd be a bad idea. Lot of car for the money though.
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Anyway, it’s in this thread ‘cos I went to look at the Merc on my bike, went for a coffe and a Bakewell slice in Castleton after

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This is up near my favourite new bench.
This was a week ago, shows how more photogenic the Ducati is, even from its worst side
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I think the top box and the road tyres are going to have to go.

Edit
Just remembered I went for breakfast at the OK diner on the A1 near Newark with my Tuesday group before I went car shopping, my mate turned up on one of these

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He's traded in his Desert X for it, he insisted I rode it home.
I’ve got to say it was an impressive machine and it really excelled in the twisties, but between the good bits it was lacking. I was glad to get back on mine.
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You could get a proper car, like me 😁
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Exige said:
This will be it's 3rd year on the road 🥳 silly billy 🤪

Mine is as Noobster says - a Ducati 999 swing arm.

The one on the original is either a Showa (who built the frame, or Kawasaki) but they only built 2 (+ spares for two bikes I guess)




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A Metmachex swingarm of the same era.
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They’re still on the go, the main man goes in my mates chippy on a Friday night.
 
Noobie said:
On land wind turbines are great. When I lived near the capital of the fens, we used to drive down to a place between Chatteris and Warboys where they had dozens of land wind turbines and we used to play "I spy with my little eye a land based wind turbine spinning" Oh how we laughed in anticipation.

Sadly despite the many hours of watching, not one moved so the lesser spotted moving land turbine remained as unseen as the lochness monster.
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We have loads of them in NZ, and they rotate as well here. Maybe they want to rotate in the opposite direction in the northern hemisphere?
Gandalf said:
The wind turbines will soon obscure the lovely coast line and once they've done that, near-shore wind turbine will follow to make sure there's nothing left worth looking at. Sadly their hideousness is the price we pay for "green" energy... ☹️
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The price we will pay for a growing population I guess? They have been very considerate where they have placed them so far…
 
SHarper said:
Alfa? I’ll go have a neb.
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I had a similar amount to spend on a new car a few months back and ended up with a shortlist of 2, the Alfa Stelvio and a BMW 3 series estate , both with 4wd . I needed something good for the dogs so not a saloon or coupe and as we are quite rural and I occasionally have to drive off road it had to be 4wd. I had to rule out a Stelvio in the end as the ones in budget were all around 170-180k miles miles which was a little more than I was comfortable starting at. I`ve taken cars up to around 200k miles but I`d prefer not to buy one quite so close to that.
I ended up buying a 330d xdrive estate. It was local , in lovely condition and the dealer offered a cracking deal. The car is great to drive when you want some fun but equally good at being dull and boring when you don`t. It`s comfy, gets close to 50mpg and not too big. I don`t like huge cars , too many narrow lanes around leading to smashed wing mirrors. My only criticism of it was the run flat tyres, it had Pirelli all round when I got it. The ride was very hard IMO. I`ve now changed two to Michelin which seem softer and quieter so will change the rest later in the year.
Between us we`ve had 5 BMWs , all but 1 over 100k miles when we bought them but all could pass as practically new.
If you are down my way ( Bedfordshire) feel free to let me know and have a go.
 
Dukesox said:
I had a similar amount to spend on a new car a few months back and ended up with a shortlist of 2, the Alfa Stelvio and a BMW 3 series estate , both with 4wd . I needed something good for the dogs so not a saloon or coupe and as we are quite rural and I occasionally have to drive off road it had to be 4wd. I had to rule out a Stelvio in the end as the ones in budget were all around 170-180k miles miles which was a little more than I was comfortable starting at. I`ve taken cars up to around 200k miles but I`d prefer not to buy one quite so close to that.
I ended up buying a 330d xdrive estate. It was local , in lovely condition and the dealer offered a cracking deal. The car is great to drive when you want some fun but equally good at being dull and boring when you don`t. It`s comfy, gets close to 50mpg and not too big. I don`t like huge cars , too many narrow lanes around leading to smashed wing mirrors. My only criticism of it was the run flat tyres, it had Pirelli all round when I got it. The ride was very hard IMO. I`ve now changed two to Michelin which seem softer and quieter so will change the rest later in the year.
Between us we`ve had 5 BMWs , all but 1 over 100k miles when we bought them but all could pass as practically new.
If you are down my way ( Bedfordshire) feel free to let me know and have a go.
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There seem to be a lot of US Stelvio / Guilia owners getting lots of miles but they are particular on oil due to the multiair system. Lots of electrical gremlins with early ones where the battery charging system is not the best (think single phase v's three phase Ducatis) mine is a 22 plate petrol with 50k on the clock and no issues for the past 10k miles (I only got electrical niggles when I tried 'a' mode in the snow - I soon learned 'a' mode is Italian for 'gay' so I've never used it again. Other modes are 'd' fir 'drinka da fuel' and 'n' for 'not so much')
I think Alfa have done a good job with the Guilia / Stelvio - Italian quirks with proper driving experience, and the price drops like a stone in the first 3 years, which I like 🤣
 
Barry Hell said:
There seem to be a lot of US Stelvio / Guilia owners getting lots of miles but they are particular on oil due to the multiair system. Lots of electrical gremlins with early ones where the battery charging system is not the best (think single phase v's three phase Ducatis) mine is a 22 plate petrol with 50k on the clock and no issues for the past 10k miles (I only got electrical niggles when I tried 'a' mode in the snow - I soon learned 'a' mode is Italian for 'gay' so I've never used it again. Other modes are 'd' fir 'drinka da fuel' and 'n' for 'not so much')
I think Alfa have done a good job with the Guilia / Stelvio - Italian quirks with proper driving experience, and the price drops like a stone in the first 3 years, which I like 🤣
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A Stelvio will likely be on my list again in a few years. I`ve not driven one but I suspect they are playing a slightly different game to the vast majority of notionally similar cars. Not everyone`s cuppa tea of course but all the better for it.
 
Barry Hell said:
There seem to be a lot of US Stelvio / Guilia owners getting lots of miles but they are particular on oil due to the multiair system. Lots of electrical gremlins with early ones where the battery charging system is not the best (think single phase v's three phase Ducatis) mine is a 22 plate petrol with 50k on the clock and no issues for the past 10k miles (I only got electrical niggles when I tried 'a' mode in the snow - I soon learned 'a' mode is Italian for 'gay' so I've never used it again. Other modes are 'd' fir 'drinka da fuel' and 'n' for 'not so much')
I think Alfa have done a good job with the Guilia / Stelvio - Italian quirks with proper driving experience, and the price drops like a stone in the first 3 years, which I like 🤣
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I hired an Alfa in Italy a few years ago and put about 800km on it - I wanted an Italian car and the only other option was Fiat 500 and since I'm not gay (that said the Abarth looks a laugh) it had to be the Alfa. It was only a diesel but was a cracker.

The Quadrifoglio's are beasts...
 
Karen said:
We have loads of them in NZ, and they rotate as well here. Maybe they want to rotate in the opposite direction in the northern hemisphere?

The price we will pay for a growing population I guess? They have been very considerate where they have placed them so far…
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I think that's because your country is upside down, you get more wind at arse level. New zealand is effectively fart powered :D
 
Dukesox said:
A Stelvio will likely be on my list again in a few years. I`ve not driven one but I suspect they are playing a slightly different game to the vast majority of notionally similar cars. Not everyone`s cuppa tea of course but all the better for it.
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Mine is only the 200 bhp Sprint version but has exactly the same engine, drive train etc. as the 280 bhp Veloce, apparently both easily re-mapped to 330 bhp if one desires 😁

The quadrofiglio is a completely different thing 😬

I was very impressed going uphill through drifting snow with only standard tyres, never felt like it was struggling
 
Barry Hell said:
Mine is only the 200 bhp Sprint version but has exactly the same engine, drive train etc. as the 280 bhp Veloce, apparently both easily re-mapped to 330 bhp if one desires 😁

The quadrofiglio is a completely different thing 😬

I was very impressed going uphill through drifting snow with only standard tyres, never felt like it was struggling
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Tyres is the most important factor in snow IMO. Enormously wide low profile tyres on a bling 4wd is likely to be worse than normal tyres on 2wd car.
 
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