I had read a rumor in our very own Sea Otter discussion forum ( http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=503696 ) that Ducati would be coming to the Sea Otter Classic. Being a long time motorcycle rider as well as a mountain biker, I double checked the Ducati website to see if the rumors were true. Low and behold, they were. And not only was Ducati going to be at the Sea Otter Classic, they were bringing a whole fleet of bikes for free demo rides!

While I packed the Mtbr booth, supplies, and mountain biking gear into my truck on the Wednesday before the event, I also stashed my motorcycle helmet, boots, jackets, and gloves…on the off chance that I would be able to break away from my duties as booth organizer, swag runner, and video interviewer and photographer.

As luck would have it, my chance came on Saturday. We had plenty of volunteer booth help and the entire sign-up, intro, ride, and post ride survey would take about 1 hour of time. Cleared it with the boss and it was a done deal!

As long as you had your gear (helmet, boots, gloves, long pants and long sleeve shirts) and your M1 and your proof of insurance, you were good to go.

They had one of the new Monster 1100s on display and even one of the Brand New Street Fighters….but the demo fleet was all HyperMotards. I had originally hoped to demo a Monster 1100, but I wasn’t gonna complain… how often do you get to test ride a Ducati for free?

Sign-ups were easy and demo rides ran every hour. I signed up for the noon ride, filled out the paperwork, then went back to our booth to gear up.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 10:45 pm and is filed under ExpoCoverage, Photos, Press and News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.