“EVERYONE SHOULD RIDE ONE AT LEAST ONCE”

“You need to ride one to understand,” says John Fallon of Made in Italy Motorcycles.

“Everyone should ride one at least once. They are fantastic motorcycles. If you had to criticise the ride, and it’s hard to do that, you might say the steering is a bit slow, partly because of their length. But they’ve got great suspension, great engines and great brakes. The three Brembos are the same as were used on Laverda Triples, but the SS is 100lb lighter.”

The SS does have lots of potential weak spots. “There are various issues with the alloy wheels failing, with crankshafts breaking and gearbox problems. They are expensive to rebuild and restore, and there’s really just one source of parts. Most of those parts work well though and the quality is really good.”

Working on them isn’t a task for the inexperienced either. “You have to split the crankcase to do any work on the bottom end and everything needs shimming. There is a lot in there. Later bikes have crankshaft failures as well as the early ones. Ducatis are always complicated to work on and if they fall into the wrong hands there can be problems.

“Keeping on top of the maintenance is important. You can get decent cranks and modern ignition systems, which we use. You hear lots of reports saying that the bikes will kick back and won’t start, but a properly set up one will start first kick. If you get to three kicks and it hasn’t started, you might need to give it 10 kicks before it will fire. If the carbs are properly balanced and the ignition is properly set up, starting won’t be a problem.

“We do get people coming in to look at them who have only ridden Hondas and bikes like that, thinking they’ll get a daily ride-to-work bike. We’ll usually steer them towards a Moto Guzzi for that sort of thing.

“Be aware of what you are buying, as quite a lot of bikes have been rebuilt to look like earlier bikes and they can be priced the same as the earlier bikes, which are worth more.

“It’s not a deliberate attempt to deceive, it’s just a fashion thing – people just like the look of the earlier models and might have fitted things like spoked wheels 25 years ago. A lot of dealers just don’t know enough about them.

“They need to be used – not necessarily daily, but regularly. We take a group of them to the South of France or to Spain every summer, where they’ll get five days of 200-miles-a-day runs, and we’ve had few issues. Don’t leave them lying around for eight years and expect them to perform. You get out what you put into it.”