Real world rides, real world riders

Dancing with the Diavel

While I didn’t find the Harley in any way offensive, if I wanted a retro styled twin I’d go out and buy a new Bonneville or go for the ‘real deal’ and spend my money on a 1970s Commando (which, incidentally, is what riding a new Harley always reminds me of), the main reason being personal taste.

And if I found myself in the fortunate position of having 20-plus grand to lavish on a bike, then it most certainly wouldn’t be to a Yamaha dealer I’d be beating a path; not that it’d do any good, as can’t you only buy V-Maxes off the internet or something? Again, though, there’s nothing wrong with the V-Max, it’s just so far from being ‘my thing’ that it might as well have hooves and legs and need stabling and feeding. Or whatever it is you do with horses. Which are also not my thing.

So to month three and TC pitched up at the office and handed me the Diavel key and said; “Put that in your pocket.” That’s the first weird thing about the dark Duke, which means – as was proved last month – it can be ridden off by anyone in the very immediate vicinity... though first of all they’d have to work out the weird ‘starting ritual’ of ‘exposing the button’ (I like to think there’s a similar system in the White House for the ‘red button’, though I hope that Barack O doesn’t just have the key in his pocket and be ‘somewhere near’ and someone else could sneak in and press it and nuclear apocalypse would be unleashed… if that is the case, then I suggest that they don’t let any more right wing Republicans in, even to just have a ‘look around’…). Once it (the Duke, not nuclear apocalypse) booms into life there’s also a load of options with regard to different ignition maps and stuff; Tony had it in ‘touring’ which sounded all right to me, so I left well alone.

It felt ungainly and hefty at low speed, and although all the weight seemed low, it just seemed a big old lump with low speed steering decidedly ‘weird’ – with the front wheel out of view and seemingly God knows where. I confess to not feeling comfortable on it at all and, out onto the road, things didn’t improve. Not to start with anyway.

We stopped for a few pictures and I tottered around the first designated corner, feeling like a vegetarian sitting down to dinner at an all you can eat steakhouse; a bit uncomfortable and wondering why I was there. Joe the snapper said later I was ‘…riding like a girl’ (he got away with it because Mel felt poorly and had gone home, otherwise he’d have got a slap from her). We moved on and slowly, slowly it was starting to all feel a bit better. I’d begun to understand that despite being a V-twin the Duke doesn’t like being ‘slogged’ in a high gear and thrives on revs. The awkwardness disappeared as I familiarised (I confess to not being anywhere near the world’s most natural rider and I can’t just hop on and hustle) and soon I was actually starting to like the Diavel. 

What had seemed lumbering and cumbersome, now seemed agile and lithe. By the time I was on my ride home, I was actually thinking it was a superb piece of kit; comfy, differently eye-catching, fabulous sounding and the first of the three machines I’ve ridden for the ‘termers’ this year that I could, perhaps, think of buying.

Bike:     Ducati Diavel
Rider:     James Robinson