Hi All,
After another week of waiting I finally picked up the Paso on Saturday! Rode it home from Sydney (about 280 km of mostly freeway) without any dramas. As most of you already told me, it is a big difference with the Suzuki (thanks to McTool for warning me about the noise, I would have worried all the way home).
While riding it this weekend a few questions came up. I sure that all of this is second nature to Ducati riders, but as I said before I'm new in the Italian camp. OK, here goes:
-The bike has been converted to twin Dell'Ortos. However, it sometimes still stalls when idling, which it does at just below 1000 rpm. If I give it just a little throttle when standing at the lights it is fine. Should the tickover be a bit higher?
-The throttle action is very heavy, is there any way of improving this? If not, I'll probably develop an extremely large and powerful right hand.
-The previous owner has installed a 906 or 7 gearbox (I have been told it uses better bearings?). At low rpm the bike pulls like a train, but it seems to run out of steam a little at higher revs. The highest gear almost seems like an overdrive, or am I just riding it wrong? I go up to the next gear at around 5-6000 rpm. I know it does not have the 100 HP of the GSX (and I am not a svelte Italian, more of a 6'7" North European) but at 140 kph it didn't feel like it would easily power to the theoretical top of 200 something. Or was that last number wishful thinking, even when new in the showroom?
-What sort of revs can it safely pull?I know the redline is at 9000, but at 6000 the bike is making a lot of noise and there is a fair bit of vibration. Or is that where you get to say: Welcome to the world of Ducati!
-I tend to use disc locks for my bikes. They're nice and compact, and any thief would at least have to bring an angle grinder. However, the discs on the Duc don't seem to have a lot of space to stick anything through them. Does anyone have a suggestion of a make or type that would fit? Or are you pretty much limited to cables or chains through the wheel?
Again, I'm a total novice Duc rider so I'm more than happy to take advice from more experienced owners. After all is said and done though, the bike is fantastic fun to ride. The noise out of the 2-1 makes your hair stand on end (try the tunnels in Sydney!), steering is nice and direct and I just love the shape of the bike. I think I'll go and ride it some more tomorrow.
Cheers,
Mike
Bought a disc lock for a scooter today (actually, I bought two) which fits perfectly through the drilled holes in the discs. 
we may even drink the same beer !
This also helped to maintain a constant idle