OK so he's a bit of a Ducatti fan but generally he's just 'two wheels good four wheels bad'. We went for a ride yesterday and he said he had a small confession to make.

He confessed he's had it for a while but couldn't bring himself to tell me he'd spent £42,500 on a motorbike when I was still out of work and struggling to keep it together with a young family. Now that's all fixed he felt he could tell me about the latest love in his life.

Haven't seen it yet, but by all accounts it's a bit of a special beast. It's a Ducatti Desmosedicci RR, a true GP replica bike. Only 1500 made worldwide and only two were left when he got this a month ago. 210 BHP, weighs 170kg! He's already got an 848 but this is a whole order of magnitude more ridiculous.

Yes, I already knew this.

Mainly because I was eavesdropping on your conversation with him in the carpark in Peaslake yesterday. 😳

Thought I recognised that Nicolai from somewhere.

And your pic doesn't work.

Scott that's too funny! Wasn't the riding jsut soooo good yesterday? Trails so dry and bullet hard. Did you have a good ride?

What bike were you on? There were a few guys in the carpark when we arrived. I remember one chap on his own on a cool looking hardtail, maybe a purple Dialled Alpine?

Not sure why the first image link doesn't work.

Purple Prince Albert – that was me. The trails were fantastic yesterday. It was my first ride in a while after fracturing my hand and I intended to take it easy, so headed up to Holmbury Hill. Started to struggle to take it easy as the conditions were so good and ended up doing a nice loop of Pitch at the end, trying to hit everything in sight. It was so nice to get the back end drifting on some of the trails, although I did feel a little beaten up at the end!

Lovely Nicolai by the way, and the ducati's quite nice as well.

nice, the noise of those desmo's are amazing. I just 'invested' in one of these.

Looks like a big fish, goes like a cruise missile Saw one out on the road a while back, by god do they sound good. Wouldn't know what to do with one myself, actually I do, I'd sell it and buy a car, a couple of mountain bikes, a fireblade and a few holidays

Thanks mate – I was eyeing up your Dialled as I am looking to get a hardtail for winter and family riding and I liked the look of yours. The Nicolai is just awesome though, although TBH the most amazing part is the Cane Creek, which really elevates the performance far beyond what you'd normally expect.

I haven't ridden a hardtail for years although I served my time on them from about 91 to 2004. I'd like to get back some of those pump & flow skills.