When blending Italian style & Italian technology you get spectacular results
Reinventing the wheel gets harder and harder when it comes down to the famous Ducati Monster. There are so many builds based on this platform that it makes it almost impossible for a bike builder to develop an original iteration.
I must admit I am a fan of the Monster. I enjoy every single line of the factory bike and I think it’s possibly one of the most beautiful production naked bikes ever produced. So when someone thinks that it can make it look better, that catches my attention.
One night, as I was surfing the web, I stumbled across a beautiful yet strange machine: a custom Ducati Monster that was different in every way than everything I saw before. A strange mix of old design and modern technology.
What's odd about this Ducati is not the design, but the fact that Marco is not a professional bike builder. He is a restaurant manager from Verona, Italy. So what do cooking and bike building have in common? To get an excellent result, you need to mix up quality ingredients and put a drop of passion among the ingredients. Oh, and in this case some copper — a lot of it, actually. And that is what Marco did.
Converting a water-cooled motorcycle into a cafe racer requires some courage. You need to hide the ugly radiator and all the coolant hoses. In this case, the rest of the bike makes one forget about the radiator.
The shortened trellis frame, along with the single-sided swing arm, front fender, engine side covers, and instrument cluster are copper-plated. The standard fuel tank didn’t fit the desired style; therefore Marco sourced a fuel tank from a Ducati Sport Classic 1000 GT. With a bit of massage technique, some knee dents were sculpted in the sides of the tank. To improve the visual appearance, some copper leaf pin striping was added to the outlines of the tank.
The tail unit resembles that of a Ducati 750SS, and it was hand made. Also, the nose cone that accommodates the headlight was shaped after a 1970’s Avon Speedflow half fairing design. In my opinion, it’s the part that adds the highest value to the build. There are lots of good-looking cafe racers with outstanding paint jobs, but only a few wear this kind of fairing. And even fewer wear it in style.
Another part that sends visual shocks to the eyes of the beholders are the stunning Kineo wheels, particularly the rear wheel. If you take a closer look at the wheel, you will notice that the spokes are not center-mounted. All the spokes are fitted to the right side of the rim.
To conclude, this is a build that confirms the old saying: "The Devil is in the detail."
P.S. Don't forget to have a look on Marco's facebook page: Gustoadulto Custom, Cafe Racer & tanto altro and check his projects.