This was an interesting experience, I have been used to going to the TriStar showroom and garage in Kuwait like its second nature to me. I have been wanting to go to the TriStar showroom in Dubai for some time now, but its a little bit away from where I usually stay so I haven’t had the time until recently.
Its strange entering a shop that you are very familiar with yet you aren’t. I was a new customer to them and it is close to new years, what was funny was that they had a loyal customer running about the shop causing havoc which was funny to us, and gave us some time to look at the beautiful machines they have in stock. Then somebody came and helped us out with all the information I went to ask, and I also managed to check on their stock of Alpinestar equipment which I wish they had in Kuwait. These guys were doing a very good job, and I was happy that they interact well with new customers, but I had the urge to just get on a bike and ride out even if it was for the day, I want to try the roads in Dubai when there aren’t any traffic (I would also remove the plates).
It was a nice visit, and when I pass by Dubai I will be stopping there to check what stock they have for bike gear.
Waking early morning to go riding on the weekend is what I look forward to! I don’t care if I sleep 2 hours or 8 hours! I want to ride from early morning to enjoy the empty streets and to blast around Kuwait at my leisure without bothering anybody! I woke up that Friday morning and it had just finished raining, we were supposed to go out for a ride but it was just too wet.
The more I sat at home the more I wanted to ride, but I thought I would ride on my own since I don’t want to put anyone else at risk but myself in this weather. It got a little bit drier towards 9:30 am so I said to hell with it I’m going out! I told some of the guys that want to go for breakfast to meet me later, but they went out in their cars. I wore full gear from top to bottom and all the armor I had, I felt like the Knight Rider! It started off me taking it easy so that the tires would warm up, I knew that would take longer, and so I was taking it easy, but after 30 minutes of riding I started picking up the pace and I have to say I love the wet traction the Pirellli SuperCorsas have! They are just fantastic, I was having a blast of a day in that wet weather, and then I got a nice bite to eat which hit the spot.
Nothing beats the feeling of getting a good ride in for the day!
The KTM Super Duke is one of the funnest bikes I have ever ridden. I have ridden the normal KTM Super Duke, and they have come up with the KTM Super Duke R which is the racing version for the consumer.
They have modified the bike to be more inclined to be aggressive on turns, and some issues are resolved with the steering dampner when it comes to tank slapping. The engine is just a bundle of fun, so much low end torque you come out of every corner smiling. This machine is built to carve corners, you will never get off this machine without a smile.
If I could I would get my hands on this machine because its so much damn fun. KTM make high quality motorcycles and this one is no different.
Link: WebBikeWorld
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Whenever I visit a place or go traveling I wonder how the roads are for riding and if they have any spot which is great for riding and cruising. As soon as I get from traveling I want to go riding right away. That is what I did when I arrived, but there was a special reason to go riding. Pyro is in the second stage of his evolution, I have been waiting for the past year for the carbon fiber fairing parts and as soon as Tristar called me, I went for them.
I am extactic with the way Pyro looks, it took about a week to get it on and fitting right. These are highquality carbon fiber pieces, but I think that they aren’t the perfect fit, but I am still very happy with it. I would give the front fairing an 8.5/10 for the fit and 9/10 for the carbon fiber tail piece. But I am very happy with the way it came out to be, Tristar did an excellent job with the finish.
I went riding and it felt like I was on a different machine and I was really enjoying it. It was cold so I was wearing my black draggin jeans, black top, black leather jacket, black helmet, black gloves, and black boots. I was the knight rider of motorcycles at that moment, it was fun.
The closest any man can get to owning a Moto GP motorcycle. Ducati has built a machine to destroy everything possible on the track, and that is only if you have the skill to get the full potential of this machine. The Italians have beaten the Japanese to the punch.
I think Ducati Rider Vito Guareschi said it perfectly, “If you have a scale of one to ten on how easy a bike is to ride with a Ducati Monster 620 at one and a MotoGP bike at ten then this is an eight and a half.” And as for reference point the 1098 would fit in at five or six.
One of the main things that every person that has ridden this machine keeps saying is the brakes are phenomenol. The frame seems to be twice as stiff as the 1098, and the 1098 is a pretty stiff bike. Its a pure and simple machine made to race with 200 bhp at the twist of a wrist. Ducati has said that they have sold all 1500 versions of these machines, and they are all selling for £40’000.
Its comes with a few very interesting extras:
- Three years free servicing
- The Race Exhaust and CPU
- Cover and Paddock Stand
Both Pyro and Robo have been under the knife for the past 10 Days, one machine is damaged while the other was recieving a face lift.
Robo Update:
- All panels almost fixed, the tank has been repaired and repainted
- Parts left to be ordered are the levers and engine crash protection
Pyro:
- Rear tire changed for the new Perille SuperCorsas
- Front and Rear fairing changed to Carbon Fiber
I hope to get Pyro before this weekend so that I can get some riding in over the weekend, I always miss riding if I don’t go for a few weeks with out it especially when the weather is this nice in Kuwait.
Pyro is out of commission for at least the next two weeks, this is a nice nail that has safely entered my rear tire.
I’m going to call Tristar when this vacation is over to see how fast they can order a new rear tire for me.
Thankfully vampire noticed the nail I had while we were stopped at the last gas station, and I was lucky it entered at a sideways angle. It was probably entered the tire while I was on a turn, its the only way it enters.
Now they will fit the carbon fiber front fairing and tail piece while they get a new tire.
It was a funny ride this day, we had a slow start to the morning and it seems everyone was groggy. We wanted to start riding from 9:30 am onwards but even with all the phone calls we didn’t start riding until 10:20 am. We weren’t sure of the direction we wanted to go but Monichum wanted to head towards the beach houses.
So we headed out in that direction going straight for the Starbucks to get warmed up. It was windy and we were shivering to death, but you could see the smiles on our faces on that cold morning. Monichum and I were riding at a constant speed, then we entered from Mina Abdulla to enjoy the inside roads. We were having a blast on this ride, and the roads were relatively empty on the way there.
Then vampire called us and we convinced him to join us, and we was there extremely faster then we expected. We all ordered something warm to drink and to eat. I had a lot of hot chocolate which wasn’t goo at all at starbucks, for some reason its either too chocolaty or too milky for my taste.
Then we started heading back after relaxing their and warming up for a while. When we headed out we took our time, and we were enjoying the ride in an orderly fashion, we kept in formation most of the way which was a good thing and you could see improvements in people’s riding. Then there was this one idiot in Kia who was going nuts on the road.
This guy in the Kia thought he owned the road so he was tailgating every car on the road on the left lane. Then he came up on vampire and he almost hit him when their was a lot of traffic. I was going nuts, luckily vampire avoided him and fell back to us, when I saw that vampire and monichum were together, I made a signal meaning I’m taking off. I flew like a demon with a vengence towards that bastard in the Kia, I was so pissed I wanted to kill him. He was trying to go faster but I was easily following him, and I was in the right light doing things which aren’t considered sane just to keep up with him in all the traffic. I was side by side to him from Manguf all the way to Fintas, it was a chase and I was going to stop until either I run out of gas or I beat this guy senseless. At fintas he took a quick exit and I still followed him, then I was expecting him to stop we headed I started shouting at him to get out of his car so that I could beat some sense into him. He was wearing some pyjamas and said “Whats wrong with you?!?!?” with an attitude while he was creating havoc on the road. I told him to get out, then he took off again and I was stopped with Monichum and Vampire so we decided head back to civilization, but I still wished he stepped out of his car. What an adventure of a day.
So after the little incident with Monichum he was ready to ride the next morning, and we had group ride planned with some other people we just weren’t sure how big the group was going to be.
It was supposed to be a ride to Abdilli, then lunch their and back. Me and my friend had other plans but we wanted to enjoy the ride so we decided to join them, but we would had back at the first stop point.
We filled up with Gas at the Miseela gas station, and then headed towards the Bida’a starbucks and as we were riding in we noticed the large number of motorcycles their. It turned out to be over 30 motorcycles parked and ready to go.
What surprised me was seeing two other 1098 motorcycles at the meet, I was the only 1098S but its fantastic seeing other Ducatis on the road, but one of them was a yellow one and it looked extremely nice. There was also a Ducati 998R and another Ducati Supersport, and Ducati Monster 695, so for a non-Ducati event their were quite a few Ducatis. And there were quite a few MV Agustas which are very beautiful machines. One motorcycle I wasn’t expecting that did show up was the KTM Superduke which is a fantastic motorcycle, I told the owner that he made a great choice with this motorcycle. Just a great number of motorcycles, it was like a candy store of motorcycles.
We started riding around 9:30 am, we took the Gulf Road until Shuweikh and then took the inside roads from their to head towards Doha, the ride was really fun and it was great keeping line. I prefer to stay in the back so that I can spot the nut cases in the group early on and avoid them, and I managed to find them very quickly. We were really enjoying ourselves, and it got colder as we rode, dropping to about 10C.
When we got to the last stop before making the destination which was a Burger King we stopped for a quick break, and we were all talking. Then we decided to head off and head back, on the ride to the Abdilli we got a light drizzle so we knew rain was on the way.
When we started heading back we were three motorcycles, two Ducatis and one BMW, the BMW rider is a guy I met before and he is really a nice guy and a good rider so we were taking our pace as we were riding back. We got onto the 6th Ring Road and cruised at 150 kph the whole way back, and then it really started raining on us while riding. The rain got more intense as we got close to the our destination, but it just felt really comforting and odd at the same time. When you get comfortable in your skin in this type of weather, something just clicks inside of you. Throughout the ride the temperature dropped to 8C so were freezing the whole ride and by the time we got home, then we managed to relax over a cup of tea and some Halo 3.
Today’s ride was cut short, we just filled up at Miseela Gas station and were heading down the Gulf Road. As we were riding we decided to make a U turn at the Bide’a round about to head towards Julai’a to avoid a lot of cars. I was watching Monichum from my rear view mirror and the round about was relatively empty and we were taking it easy, so I looked back and saw him following me.
Then I headed down the road, and I couldn’t see him in my rear view mirror. I waited for a minute and then I knew something was wrong so I made an illegal U turn and flew back to find him pushing the bike to side walk. I parked the bike, and I asked him what happened since he was going so slow, what could have happened.
He told me he slipped on a stain on the ground which turned out to be a large oil stain. He said suddenly the back end of the bike was going out from under him and before he realized it he was spinning on the ground. He let go of the bike which is an important part of him not being hurt much except for a few bruises and a bruised pride. Lucky for him the car that saw him blocked off the round about with his car, so that nobody would hit him which was great of him.
I was happy as hell nothing happened to him, he just kept apologizing since he was riding Robo. Robo took the fall like a champ, because of the armor at the bottom it kept the bulk of the fall off his leg, which is the exact reason for the protection and so that bike doesn’t get harmed. A few parts were broken or scratched, so they just need to be replaced, it will take a little while to get all the parts so thats all its going to take to fix them.
I called the Tristar guys, but it was slim chance since it was 9:30 am on Thursday morning on Eid. Luckly for me I got one of the guys and within 30 minutes the Tristar van was there to take the bike. The most amazing thing was that two police cars passed us by for the hour and half we were there and they didn’t bother to talk to us or ask if anything is wrong. I’m honestly shocked at their lack of help, and even if nothing was wrong we were stopped illegally and they didn’t say a word. One of those police cars stopped on the round about for 45 minutes and didn’t say a word to us, I was pissed. Tristar reacted better then the damn Police!
The funny part is Monichum wanted to go riding, so he wanted to go get his bike. I told him his enthusiasm is great but he shouldn’t be riding for the rest of the day until he gets it in his head exactly what happened. He felt like a new man later in the day, but he felt the bruises. He was happy he was wearing his jacket, now he wants more gear and real racing boats not the shoes he was wearing. Now he wants to ride more then ever, and I’m just happy that he is fine and nothing bad happened. Robo is out of commission for a little while.
