The problem is, that once something starts to approach your ideas of perfection, small things start to bother you.

The Ducati Sport classic is quite pretty straight out of the factory, but it has all the usual issues related to meeting EU and DOT regulations, plus the price limit on the bike set by the marketing department that means some parts are just plain cheap. Dealing with tail tidies, mirrors, indicators and sorting out the fuelling (limited by emmissions and noise regs) are must-dos that most of us just have to sort... and then you move on to the bigger stuff (as per my previous posts). So now I've done the must-dos and some of the bigger stuff, I'm back to the small things that niggle. First up, are those horrible tupperware Brembo bar-mounted reservoirs just have to be minimalised, or hidden. Fuctionally I'm sure they are the bees-knees (Brembo know what they're doing, right?), but having two un-equally sized and positioned urine-sample pots, mounted crookedly on each lever with a bent bit of alu suddenly looks totally unacceptable. Plan A is to hide them altogether. After much arguing about the way a sealed hydrualic system works, the consensus seems to be that the reservoirs can be mounted anywhere, as long as they are at the highpoint in the system every time you bleed them - so at some point I may tuck them under the yokes. Meanwhile I'm gonna start cheap and simple, by replacing the oversized Brake pot with a Clutch-sized one, and then mounting them evenly. From there, I've cut down both brackets by about 12mm and am mounting them backwards, and initially I'm using clear fluid hose so I can see if any bubbles collect where they shoudn't, as the new routing I have keeps the reservoirs high, but the hoses are horizontal and won't encourage bubbles to rise through the thick fluid. I figure that as long as I can see the state of the fluid, I'm able to monitor whether my alternative mounting ideas will stand the test of time.

Should I be drinking more water, doctor?

Anyway, it's a small mod, but a big principle, so while it's not the most exciting bike-related post on the interweb, it is a pre-cursor to me doing something more radical...

Small things can bring big joy

My next obsession is trying to reduce the size of those clocks... This could be messy or expensive!

This guy (Robsy) on the US Ducati Sport Classic forum had new shells made from carbon fibre. Maybe if I get the hacksaw and superglue out...?