The Tesi keeps chugging along – let’s see how the last 2,500 miles have been!
Did you miss Part 5? The Tesi hits 5,000 miles.
Around 6,000 miles, I started to experience some hard starts from the Ducati 1100 Evo engine. Daniel (the Service Manager at Iconic) has extensive Ducati experience (he used to work at Ducati Beverly Hills) and he suggested we should take a look at the valves. Specified valve checks are at 7,500 miles but I’m aggressive with this bike and it never hurts to check a little early. That helped a lot but I would later find out that the Walbro ECU can be a little sensitive to certain data points that affect how much fuel it supplies during a cold start. Now if I have trouble starting the Tesi I just power cycle the bike and it works perfectly the second time.
This is how much Daniel had to disassemble the bike to check the valves, replace the spark plugs, and install new timing belts:
With a major service complete, I could go back to riding the bike regularly. The usual mix is a daily commute plus the occasional weekend ride.
Photo by Gray Van Dyke
Alpinestars is making some custom suits for my business partner and me so I stopped by their US headquarters to get some measurements done. Right around the corner from their building is this statue of Jesus, and for some reason I felt like I had to get a photo with it.
I’m pretty excited about the suit, it’s been a milestone of mine in the world of motorcycling ever since I met so many journos that were bestowed the honor. But more on that later…
First, meet my buddy Heath Cofran, he’s the Media & Communications Director at Alpinestars. Heath got to sit on the Tesi, he’ll try it out a different day when he’s not so busy at work.
He let me try on a prototype (this happened months ago, I’m really behind on this writeup) of the new Alpinestars Supertech R10 Launch Edition helmet, and it’s definitely light on the head for everything that’s going on. Plus the carbon fiber looks amazing! Just 200 are being sold to the public, and they sold out way before I finally hit publish on this story.
I also got to see a prototype of the regular model, which is hitting stores now.
Little plug for Heath – he’s one of the people behind Compact Octane, a local track day organization which focuses on offering track days for little (<500cc) bikes. That eliminates the dangers of having much faster bikes and large closing speeds out on the track, and I think it's a great idea! I sold my Ninja 400 track bike but maybe I can get away with the 160 in the slow group? Eh, probably not.
While Heath was too busy for a spin on the Tesi, I later went for a Sunday ride with my General Manager, Kento (formerly the editor in chief at Sport Rider). He joined on his Yamaha Tracer 9 GT (when someone rode motorcycles for a living for over twenty years and they buy a Tracer 9 GT as their daily commuter, that’s a valuable endorsement) and one point I asked him to ride the Bimota. It’s now Kento-approved!
Our friends over at the Bike Shed have started themed days for different Saturdays of the month – the first Saturday is for Italian bikes, second is for customs, plus there’s days for British bikes, electrics, etc. They asked if I’d bring the Tesi around to use as the feature bike for some marketing material and I was happy to oblige. I was even happier to see my buddy Morgan Gales (formerly of Cycle World) there as the photographer, as he was the Club and Experience Manager for Bike Shed. I say “was” because he’s since moved on to other things (have I mentioned that this story is very late enough times yet?).
I guess this is really just a photo of Morgan’s back. But it was cool to see someone else’s perspective of what the best angles are for the Tesi.
So I went to the Bike Shed that Saturday and was blown away to see my bike on the wall!
They also put the image on their menus.
My buddy Jay and I went right when the restaurant opened in the morning in the hopes of grabbing some social media but we were the first ones there. That gave me an excuse to drool over Jay’s beautiful custom Laverda.
That night, Vy and I went to dinner. One disadvantage of the Tesi – there isn’t really room for leftovers.
I guess that’s it for now. Back to commuting!
On to Part 7 – I get a Tesi-related gift!