Waking the dead...

Four weeks ago, I couldn't bend my right knee enough to sit on the F1. I'd been slowly working back into a regular training regime and things were progressing well until a 5 mile bicycle ride threw the knee into a swollen, painful state that I simply couldn't put right on my own. Every time I'd try and build strength in my quad and hamstring, I'd aggravate the joint and throw the muscles back into a state of atrophy. Three weeks of daily physiotherapy did the trick and by last Wednesday, I seemed to be good to go and truly looking forward to four days at Mosport.

Driving 10 hours north or south during a change in seasons is like traveling in time. In this case, late May in Bethesda looked like late June in Ottawa; with the leaves full on the trees, balmy temperatures and green everywhere. As we headed north, it seemed like we were rolling back the calendar at a rate of three days per hour and when we crossed the boarder at Thousand Islands, the trees were in early bloom and the temperatures more like what I’m used to for this time of year.

I spoke with Bar Hodgson three weeks before the event and he agreed to pull the Adamo/Leoni Mille Battle of the Twins Championship winning bike out of the Supershow Collection. This is a bike that I’ve only seen twice and heard running once (about 8 years ago), but it left an incredible impression on me. I think it’s the most gorgeous Ducati ever created - with incredible lines and a massive presence (for such a small machine). Jimmy and Reno won the BOTT Championship with it in 1986; clocking over 160mph on the big Daytona track and then the bike (as with many Leoni machines) was shipped up to the Great White North for Frank Mrazek to do battle against the Interceptor, GS 1000 and KZ100 superbikes of that period. Back in the 80’s, Tim Spiegelberg (www.euroclassic.ca) fettled the machine and while patching it back together after some of Frank’s infamous get-offs, made some mods to the chassis and geometry. The machine made it into Bar’s collection after a mild restoration.

Bar brought his TT1 and his 955 along with the Mille and I came packed with the Hypermotard and my newly freshened F1. I missed the DOCC event at Mosport last year and was feeling downright excited about letting the F1 loose on this fast circuit with the open megga and new motor. And when I went out Saturday morning for the first session, I wasn’t disappointed.. Between Kyle Thompson’s work on the motor and the changes we made to jetting and cam timing the thing was an absolute joy to ride. Same old “where’s the beef?” seamless power delivery that only tells you you’re smokin’ when you pay attention to what you’re keeping up with on Mosport’s long, uphill back straight. Fran called it “a rocket” so it must be. I recall taking a run at Chris McDermott on his 999 and being pleasantly surprised that I could at least stay in touch. The knee was OK for about 15 minutes of silliness and then I’d be forced to back off and pull in - and although I was nowhere near my best pace, I had some good hard runs with Fran both days.

Between sessions on Saturday, Bar and I went over his TT1 to get it prepped for tech and by mid-afternoon, we were picking away at the Mille. I found that the front end was really soft and discovered a complete lack of fluid in the rebound leg. Topped it up and added some oil to the compression leg to be safe. As Bar went about wiring up a fresh battery, I pulled a carb only to discover the float bowels filled with something that looked like pickled worms. Both came off and we set to cleaning the bowels, jets and airways. When we added gas to the tank, the right petcock began weeping aggressively and a careful attempt to tighten it only made it worse. Drain the tank, pull the petcocks and watch Bar methodically dress the crossed threads with an Exacto knife for 20 minutes.

We had at it again Sunday morning and discovered that the right fork leg had no oil due to a serious leak from the rebound adjuster. I replaced a couple of o-rings and topped off the fluid again – but found that I likely needed longer preload spacers to get the sag I needed. Bar finished off the battery wiring – which left us with the most perplexing task for last. We had to do something (but other than add lots of air, we weren’t sure what..) to the rear “Double” air shock given that it had rebound damping, but zero spring action. We’d messed with a similar unit on Bar’s TT1 a few years ago and replaced it with a Stadium shock out of frustration, but this time we figured we’d take a whack at getting the unit to work (or something…). The Bridgestone guys kindly offered us 100PSI of compressed air and with 90 lbs in the unit; we were amazed to find that the damned thing actually worked. A rebound was a little slow for my tastes, but workable and a far cry better than what we had hoped for. The “spring” rate was about perfect. There is an adjusting screw on the primary body and a valve of some sort upstream of the secondary reservoir, but we have no idea what they do and weren’t inclined to mess with the set-up we’d stumbled on.

Between sessions on the F1, I stopped by Tim Spiegelberg and Don Gosen’s pit to chat about Tim’s experiences with the Mille and he agreed to able over and have a look – but no before insisting that back in the day, they always added air to the Marzocchi M1R forks. How much? 20 – 30psi!!. Yikes! He admitted that the fork had never worked well, but we were in an experimental mood, so Bar hand pumped 15psi into each leg and damned if it didn’t get the sag into the ball pack. Felt weird, but might do for a few tentative laps… And with that, we decided to fire the thing up using Bar’s shiny, new roller starter.

And it was like waking an angry giant.

The sound bite in the video doesn’t do this machine justice. The ground shook. Everything else that was happening around us simply stopped. After running it long enough to establish a good degree of fitness, I synched the carbs and we took a crack at getting the idle circuit sorted, but then discovered that as with most early race bikes, the throttle stops were disconnected and that the low speed stuff would evade us for this weekend. Bar ran it down into the lower pits, turned it around and gave it enough stick to bug his eyes out and blow his ball cap off.

And then it was my turn.

Frankly, it ran like crap until about 5 grand and then it woke up with a boot to the head and simply launched itself into another space. Cool. BIG POWER.

It’s funny. I saw the potential way before Bar did. With properly sorted forks (piece of cake), a bit of guidance on the shock (I have Romanelli’s phone number), K5 needles and a functioning idle circuit, the thing would be an easy ride. But for this weekend, a quick review of the dates on the tires (1987) quashed any plans of running the Mille on the track.

I had some fine rides on the F1 and took the Hypermotard out for a couple of sessions (handles like a dream), but the high point for me was the whole process of bringing the old warrior back to life and getting a detailed run-down on its history from Tim.

During the weekend Bar and I were in different classes so we didn’t have a chance to ride together, but on Monday we both moved into the Red group and set out for a session with me on the F1 and he on the TT1. However, the TT1 started to miss as Bar headed out of Turn 3 and began to sputter as he came out of Moss’ and onto the back straight. He pulled off on the inside and as I came around for the next two laps, I saw him taking in the noise from a shady perch behind the guardrail – but on my 5th pass, I noticed he was gone. I pulled in thinking that he was headed into a 1.5 mile walk through the woods at best and set off in my car to pick him up. As I hit the end of the access road that runs halfway down the back straight, I caught sight of him (hard to miss in bright red leather) coming up the hill. He mentioned as we were riding back that his mood had turned from sour to mellow as the woodsy setting took hold, but that that he had a hard time shaking off the unnerving sense of feeling horribly and completely out place (not to mention a tad warm) in full red leathers.

Bar and I sat out staring at the machine Monday at sunset and as I began to snap photos, he got out a fresh towel and started dusting off the Mille and shining up the bodywork. About 20 minutes later as we sat admiring this incredibly handsome beast, he mentioned that he had a set of new Michelin slicks sitting back at the shop. I think it’s safe to say that I’ll get to test my theory next year.

Hi Rez pics over HERE

The "F1" is based on a 1988 Ducati 750 F1 that now displaces 853cc. loudbike is a state of mind, a weblog about fast, loud Italian motorcycles