I agree. Yeah the Katana was a good deal when I first got it and it fit me well. I'm tall and so are Katana's. Funny thing is.... my girlfriend drives this car way more than I do now. I'm driving our old Ford Ranger which she really hates but was driving.

I'd like a Duc ST4. I'm doing almost all comuting now as I don't have time to hit Palomar. Ducati's are my favorite bikes of all.

Frank.

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'82 300SD

Laguna Seca is a trip I would dearly love take on my old 93' 888, however my holidays have pretty much been spent travelling by 300D. (girlfriend cant ride with me as the 888 is a solo). I pretty much stick to the Pacific Northwest, due to time constraints.
...one day....!
The 300D just pulled off yet another 5000km trip to Winnipeg (former home-town) & back without as much as a stumble. Man, these cars like to be driven hard all day; 140 to 160 kmh (75 to 100 mph) thru the mountains and over the endless prairie is easy for these cars. The last time I tried that on my Ducati I was windburned so bad I bled when I tried to move my facial muscles, and deafened by the roar of my quasi-legal Termignoni's, got 2 tickets (%%$&^* bike is a cop magnet, unlike the MB) and the ignition crapped out north of Banff, at dusk, in thje middle of nowhere, in an area known to have a very large population of bears. Then I couldnt move to work on ythe bike cuz I was so cold and cramped up from riding the torture rack, (pre HeliBar & Corbin seat days...) and my hands were numb from the tingling & gorilla-grip throttle and damn stiff racing clutch. The Duke has a 984 big bore kit, and is far thirstier (premium, of course) than the MB, so it is cheaper to take the car.
I ended up sitting in a ditch drinking up all of my piss-warm scotch till dawn, waiting for the bears to come & get me. Then slept in the same ditch till almost 2PM and got eaten by ants that had crawled into my leathers, and fixed the bike the following day. I didn't realize my leathers were full of ants and fleas until I was near Jasper, being tailgated by a log truck. Now travelling by MBz diesel is a true joy. Comfort, speed, music and a cooler full of GingerBeer and sandwiches. And NO BUGS gnawing at my private bits.

Oh, those 888s are beauties! So are the old 851s and the 750SSs from the mid-seventies. And the 996/998s. But then again, my Triumph's a beaut also.
And I thought electrical gremlins were limited to the Brit makes! Funny how Japanese cars/bikes almost never seem to have electrical problems, while it seems common to see a late model Mercedes or VW with a tail-light out.
I agree with you though that a long drive's really nice in the Diesel, but REALLY fun on a bike. I'm only about 300-350 miles from Laguna-Seca and make it up there almost every year. My old CBR 600F2 was out of commission last year so I had to drive a car(not even my Mercedes). But since I bought the Triumph about 3 weeks ago, I can hardly wait for the chance to travel up through Big Sur.
You ought to bring the 888 down and have your girlfriend drive the Diesel loaded with tools/luggage/sleeping gear etc. Oh, yeah, I bet that suggestion would fly! Never mind.
Wait, isn't this the Diesel Discussion?

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Dave
1995 C280
1999 Triumph Daytona 955I - my speed fix.
1982 300TD - Gone, but not forgotten.

I plan on taking in the Pacific Northwest diesel meet that is being discussed elsewhere in this forum in the 300D, but will do the Pacific Coast Highway the next time I either get 10 days or more off or am unemployed again. The 888 has been improved & is a much more comfortable bike than the days of my aforementioned experience, and I used to really like long bike rides, but 48 of your Earth Years will have passed this fall, (time flies when youre in a coma) and I am finding a couple 14 hour days crouched into a racers tuck to be a bit less easy to uncurl from & I flatly refuse to buy a Wingebago. I mainly do solo weekenders now - Too many poorly healed crash damaged bones to live in the saddle like I did in the seventies (before the advent of stiff frames and helmet laws).
Congrats on the purchase of your Big Triple, BenchRacer. I have admired those bikes for a while, They handle well, are stable at speed (unlike the twitchy Honda CBRs I have ridden) have great predictable brakes (Brembo's, I believe) and have sensible ergonomics for use in The Real World. They have that understated elegance - like a Mercedes Benz - and arent covered in neon and advertising like the products of Hamamatsu.
A bike for a Mercedes afficionado.
By the way - is it that Deep Dark Blue? You will notice the similarity to Triumph motorcycle colours and Mercedes Benz colours.

Thanks for the compliments Ducati.
I was actually eyeing the Yamaha's, both the R1 and R6, prior to buying this Triumph. I was looking at new Yamaha's and just couldn't justify spending almost 12k right now, so I started looking on cycletrader.com when I found the Triumph. Drove a curvy mountain road in L.A. the weekend after my purchase, with a friend who owns an R1. We swapped bikes for a while and it made me SO happy that I didn't get the R1. You can drive the Yamaha faster, but it really requires a lot of attention. Whereas the Triumph is much easier and requires much less attention. As such, it has so much more real-world application. The following weekend, this same friend happened upon a 1979 Yamaha 1100XS at a garage sale and bought it for $100. It's got to be the ugliest bike I've ever seen, looks like something out of Mad Max. But he's had so much fun driving that beast around - makes him want to sell his R1 to get something that's not so high-strung.
BTW, mines all black. The previous owner did some fairing damage to the front piece and the left side. I'm spraying the front piece this weekend and hope to get to the left side before the trip to Laguna, July 11-15.
As for the paint on my wagon, it's still covered in mud from my last fishing trip to the Upper Sacramento River in April. My bikes always look better than my cars.

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Dave
1995 C280
1999 Triumph Daytona 955I - my speed fix.
1982 300TD - Gone, but not forgotten.

Ducati I know you pain when you talk about long rides on a crotch rocket. I twice did a 10 hour stretch on the Katana riding up to Humboldt from San Diego. Broke the trip up into two days there and two back I just didn't plan my stopping points as well as I could have. I still had a total blast and can't wait to do it again someday. I am fortunate enough to not have a crash damaged bones, I can only imagine what that must add to the "sensation".

If school forces me to sell my truck (4x4 built up 4runner not real good for daily driving use) I'm going to take some of the money and buy another bike. I think I might look at an older BMW or the likes. I'd like something that is a good commuter but I can still have some fun on the few times I might get out to the twisties. At the very least, a bike like that might let my wrist get back in the game. I had tenosinivitis(sp?) from a job I worked about 9 years ago and that's why they hurt. It's been chronic ever since and It's something I just have to live with.

Frank.

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'82 300SD

I hate to say this in a forum that is about cars, but as enthusiastic I am about MBz diesels, they are tools - conveyances that get me around when I am not riding a motorcycle, to haul engines to the shop, aluminum swingarms to the poilishers, tow the bike trailer, take crash-damaged fairing lowers to the paint shop, and injured buddies to the hospital - and me to work during the Monsoon Season (This Is the Pacific Northwest I live in...) If I HAVE TO drive a car, it must be a car like a diesel Mercedes. Reliable, comfortable, easy to work on, mechanically straightdforward and uncomplicated, understated and...not a Cop Magnet (The MBz gives my drivers licence, which is always imperilled by motorcycle incidents, a bit of a "breather"). The MBz does not tempt me to drive like a deranged nutcase. The 888...dont get me started.

Amen!

If I could pack a fly-rod and all the associated fishing gear on the bike along with my wife and her own fishing gear, I'd have no real need for a car. But what a car my wagon is! And as for the license protection, there's nothing less noticeable to a cop than a Diesel, especially a Diesel wagon. I can drive 80-90 mph all day with little fear that a cop is going to pull me over when there are so many Honda Civics with loud pipes going 5 mph over the limit that I know attract more attention that my car. If you'd asked me, five years ago, the chances of me ever driving a Diesel - let alone a station wagon, I'd have laughed at you. Now I'm proud to be driving the best fishing car ever built.

BTW - sold my Honda CBR600F2 today. I got 56,000 miles out of it.

__________________
Dave
1995 C280
1999 Triumph Daytona 955I - my speed fix.
1982 300TD - Gone, but not forgotten.