World Superbike returns to the Nurburgring after the summer break. Carlos Checa on the Althea Ducati 1198 is near the front in practice, and Shane Byrne is not far behind on his Althea Ducati. It starts at 10AM on Sunday, so we won’t meet up for that one.

MotoGP is at Misano and Casey Stoner qualified on the front row. Pedrosa is on pole and Lorenzo is second. Unfortunately Nicky Hayden qualified 14th, near where the satellite Ducati riders qualified.

Let’s watch the MotoGP race at O’Malley’s at 5PM on Sunday.

Directions and information on the Club Activities page.

Jorge Lorenzo has stated that he wants to win both races in the USA, but after last year’s race there’s no way to tell what will happen. Rossi crashed out, Hayden got a podium, and Dovisioso was going very quickly at the end. If it’s as unpredictable this year it should be a really great race.

Don’t forget that O’Malley’s has a nice food menu and a lot of beers on draft. It’s a great place to have lunch.

More info and a map on the Club Activities page.

Hope to see you on Sunday.

Ben Spies had his best ever qualifying performance, second behind Dani Pedrosa. Both Lorenzo and Rossi crashed during the session. Spies actually had pole for part of the session.

Ducati rider Casey Stoner starts from fourth, and Nicky Hayden from eighth.

More info at the Club Activities page.

The short version of the location: North on La Cholla from Ina to the first light, turn left and it’s right there on the right.

For a map with directions, see the Club Activities link.

The weather is supposed to be good, so get those bikes out and ride them!

Let’s meet up at slightly before 2PM on Sunday at O’Malley’s on Fourth to watch both races.

Max Biaggi is looking pretty good for the championship at this point. Leon Haslam is the only other rider even close, and he’s been struggling lately. But when he’s fast, he wins, so he’s not out of it yet. Reastically, there are about three to four riders fighting to overtake Johnny Rea in third. Ducati riders Carlos Checa and Nori Haga are definitely still able to do that.

Former AMA Superbike rider Luca Scassa has been improving every race on his Ducati 1198, he’ll be one to watch.

More info about the event and directions to O’Malley’s at the Club Activities page.

Let’s meet at O’Malley’s on Fourth to watch it.

There are a few interesting stories developing for this race: There is some expectation that more announcements about 2011 rider lineups will be made. Bridgestone is bringing “asymmetric” tires (different compounds on each side) to try to minimize highsides in right turns where the tire is cold. Quite a few riders highsided last year. Valentino Rossi is back and hopes to be closer to the front this race. He won last year in a very close race with Casey Stoner.

Hope to see you there.

More info on the Club Activities page.

The first featured bike is Chris Brown’s 1979 Ducati 900 Supersport. The bevel drive engine is shown in the photo above.

If you have an interesting Ducati which you think would be a good featured bike, please let me know and I might be able to get it on the site.

A featured bike needs to include some nice photos in order to make it onto the site. If you don’t have any good photos of your bike, member Dan Katz might be able to help with his new photography company, www.caputrebykatz.com.

Dan will be attending many of our rides and events, and hopefully bringing his camera along to get a few shots of the club in action. Let him know if you’d like some photos of your bike.

The flat black and red/black color schemes remain, but now there is a black painted swingarm like the larger bikes. The lettering on the fuel tank and fairing are also now black instead of white.Probably the most noticeable externally visible performace improvement are the updated front brake calipers. These are now the Brembo monobloc 2 pad calipers, same as the 1198 and 1198R.The new tech specs indicate that the engine has increased power and torque. The only change in the internal engine spec that is public so far is the compression ratio, up to 13.2:1 from 12:1 in the 2010 bike. This is the highest compression ratio of any recent Ducati that I can remember. As far as I know, it’s higher than the super duper racy 748R and 749R, which were the highest tuned engines Ducati ever delivered directly to the general public.The new engine also has two lambda probes (aka exhaust gas sensors) in the exhaust instead of only one on the previous bike, which should allow for finer control of engine tuning. It’s likely some other things have been changed that don’t show up on general specification charts such as valve timing, lift, duration or possibly igntion timing. The result is 140 horsepower, up from 134 on the 2010 bike. Torque is also improved to 72.3 foot pounds, up from 70.8.Another important change is the addition of a steering damper which was previously not included on the 848. There was (and is) an upgraded one available in the accessory catalog, which fits on the new 2011 model as well as the previous model years. The one that comes on the 2011 bike is the same one as the standard 1098 and 1198 bikes.The new dash shows “848E” instead of “848″ on the old bike, which is a nice touch. They are not letting the rider forget that this is a new and improved bike. The tech specs for the dash show that the DDA (Ducati Data Analysis) feature is no longer available, but I would be really surprised if this is the case. DDA is a very cool tool available from the Ducati accessory catalog. It collects various data at the track that you can later analyze to decide if you are making improvements.The suspension remains the same as the previous model, which is a bit unfortunate because the addition of a rear ride height adjuster would really round out the improvements to the bike. There is a ride height adjuster available in the Ducati accessory catalog, and it’s the same one which comes standard on the 1198 and previously the 1098 as well. Ride height adjustment is important for making meaningful changes to a motorcycle’s geometry to tailor the handling to the rider’s needs.I was lucky enough to test the 848 when it was released in 2008, and it was one of the more exciting bikes I had ridden up to that time. I was running to the bank when I got off the bike before I realized I couldn’t afford it! It’s more appealing for my own tastes than the 1098 or 1198, which are really, really fast and can be intimidating. The 848 felt lighter than any other Ducati superbike I had ever ridden, and in fact it actually was (except for a 999R race bike I rode with carbon fiber wheels, but this doesn’t really count ). It had enough power to lift the front wheel in the first two gears without using the clutch, which was really impressive. It felt faster than my 996 race bike for sure once the RPM was above 8000. The brakes felt fine to me, so the new monobloc calipers are probably not as necessary as some uninformed opinions on the internet might lead you to believe.

This new bike has a whole 6 more horsepower, as well as more torque, so it’s got to be even more exciting than the last one!

Call or take a trip down to Renaissance Motorcycles for price and availability information.

Valentino Rossi returned and is only a few hundredths behind Lorenzo. Lorenzo was seventh, Rossi eighth.

Ben Spies finished the session as the fastest Yamaha rider in fourth which is particularly impressive since he has never ridden at this track before.

www.frankiescheesesteaks.com

I figured we should get back to an Italian themed meeting place. Well, Italian/American anyway…

Frankie’s has great cheesesteaks and hoagies. It’s located just south of Blue Willow if you’re familiar where that is. It’s near the crosswalk which has a traffic signal, on the east side of the street.

More info on the Club Activities page.