Christmas Holiday Ducati Gift Guide
With Black Friday behind us in the US, the Christmas holiday season is well and truly underway. To help you with gift ideas for the Ducatista in your life we have put together a few Ducati orientated products I’m sure they’ll love. We hope you are inspired by the Christmas Holiday Ducati Gift Guide.
Apps
Ducati Challenge is the newest and by far the best Ducati videogame that is available for Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. We reviewed the iPad Ducati Challenge HD version and highly recommend it.
The first thing you notice is the graphic quality and the realistic feeling of the controls. The tracks and peripheral imagery all look great, the bikes respond nicely to control inputs and in model appropriate ways. A very realistic impression of speed is rendered as you accelerate drawing you into the game play. A large part of the success here is the sound. Although no longer the real samples you heard when you selected a model, each sound is high quality and distinctly different amongst models. You hear the gear changes up the box as you accelerate and you hear the overrun pop as the bike goes down the gears heading into a turn on the brakes, sometimes accompanied by a flash of fire out of the exhaust. Nice touch.
link: Ducati Challenge HD iPad Game Review | Ducati News Today
Ducati Challenge is available on the Apple App Store. Pricing is $2.99 for the iPhone
version and $4.99 for the iPad version.
Food and Wine
CorsaCaffe coffee comes in three varieties, two of them leaded and one unleaded (decaffeinated). Ducati News today sampled the Rosso and Nero blends. We fired up our Saeco Superautomatic espresso machine and went about the task of drinking copious espresso shots, lattes, machiattos and cappuccinos. Arun Sharma has such a passion for Italy and Ducati he has brought us Ducati inspired coffee and wine.
If you prefer your Ducati with a full termignoni system to the stock exhaust then you’ll likely prefer the Nero blend as we did. This darker roast has a much stronger flavor just the thing to kickstart your day in the morning. Arun describes it as a solid blend of regional coffees. Aromatic with orange peel and leather. In the cup sweet caramels and chocolates combine with guava and hibiscus to balance perfectly. Exactly what I was thinking!
link: CorsaCaffe combines Ducati Passion with Caffeine | Ducati News Today
Beans are roasted to order and shipped out same day. If Dad loves coffee as much as his Ducati CorsaCaffe could be the ideal gift. The Rosso, Nero and Decaffeinato beans are available from CorsaCaffe priced from $13.75 to $14.25 for a 12oz package plus shipping.
CorsaVino founder Arun Sharma teamed up with vintner Rich Cushman to produce the range of wines inspired by his passion for Italian motorcycles. These fine machines are for him the embodiment of craftsmanship, artistry and savoring the moment. Originally “not much of a drinker”, many trips to Italy exposed Arun to the passion of winemaking and the ritual of slowing down to share a fine wine with friends.
If you like most of us, you are often swayed on unknown wine by the label you’ll like this one! The label shows a Ducati 1098 Superbike cranking through a turn whilst escaping from the fading city backdrop. After growing up on Australian reds, Syrah is one of my favorite reds. This one is ruby in color and for us the nose was expansive with plenty of fruity overtones including boysenberry hints. To taste, the balance between the French oak and the fruit was very good and we enjoyed the long, finish. Definitely an enjoyable wine and something to recommend for a Ducati inspired occasion.
link: CorsaVino Wine Review | Ducati News Today
The CorsaVino site offers 3 different wines for sale ranging from $24 to $29 per bottle, namely a Viognier and two reds, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Syrah.
Books
Ducati 1098/1198 – The Superbike Redefined by Marc Cook, the co-author of ‘Ducati 999: Birth of a Legend’, tells the inside story of the design, development and production of the 1098 Superbike. The book provides a soup to nuts guide of how Ducati approached replacing the failed 999 line with a new model destined for success.
This need to rationalize, together with Domenicali combining the racing development team with the streetbike team and his almost Steve Jobs like attention to detail are a powerful theme throughout the book. For example the adjustable steering head of the 999 was dropped for the 1098 because it added complexity which few owners ever used. In another simplification, only one rear subframe was used because (apart from the 1098R) all 1098!s are biposto. After racers found their arms were contacting the tank during hard cornering the shape of the tank was changed to accommodate their needs.
link: Review: Ducati 1098 / 1198 Superbike Redefined | Ducati News Today
You can get your copy of Ducati 1098/1198: The Superbike Redefined from Amazon for $25.84 at the time of writing.
The Ducati Story by Ian Falloon. Ian Falloon is a well known Ducatista having authored over 20 books including 8 on Ducati and contributing as a freelance motorcycle journalist all over the world. His Ducati Story chronicles the firms beginnings through the advent of it’s signature desmodromic valve technology, the development of the engine now irrevocably associated with the company, the L-Twin, and onwards to racing glory.
Falloon organizes the book mostly chronologically starting with the early single cylinder bikes but devotes most of the 247 pages to the later, more iconic twin cylinder machines. Chapters discuss the Pantah and the successful TT2 racers and they spawned along with some of the politics involved in the company’s history such as the Cagiva takeover and the later American involvement in the ownership structure. The story is very much one of passion sometimes not partnered with sound management judgement as Ducati has had many financial crises in its time.
link: Review: The Ducati Story by Ian Falloon | Ducati News Today
In the end Ducati is all about passion something the book captures well. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Ducati Story’ by Ian Falloon and commend it to all Ducati fans as an essential overview of the company and it’s motorcycles. You can buy The Ducati Story from Amazon with pricing at $26.37 at the time posting.
The Ducati Monster Bible by Ian Falloon. Since it was the Ducati Monster that more or less saved Ducati in the early 1990′s it is about time that someone catalogued the tremendous model range that began in 1993 with the original Monster 900.
The Monster might never have been a Ducati at all. Only pressure from Massimo Bordi (designer of the Desmoquattro powerplant) stopped the Monster from being named a Cagiva alongside the Elefant road/trail machine. Since the original concept was based on an 888, Galluzzi wanted the 4-valve engine to go into production but the poor selling 900 Supersport meant that the surfeit of 2-valve engines were soaked up instead.
link: Ducati Monster Bible Book Review | Ducati News Today
The Monster became the first production streetfighter and one of the most important Ducati models of all time. ‘The Ducati Bible’ by Ian Falloon is published by Veloce Publishing Ltd and is available from the publisher and from Amazon. The recommended retail price is £30.00 / $59.95 but at the time this was published it is currently discounted on Amazon to $41.97.
So there you have it. Of course if none of the above are suitable you could always put a voucher for a new Ducati 1199 Panigale in the stocking!
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