StolenS4

There is a story behind every bike I own 12/2025

Warning, 17mile story ahead.

Long long ago when I was building the 888LTD for Wally, there was a need for a set of 5spoke Marchanisi wheels which many know are impossible to find for the 851/888 platform. My solution at the time was to find an S4 and buy it for the wheels which we did. I found a decent bike in upstate NY and drove out and paid cash for it (well, wally paid cash for it). The bike was your base model Monster S4, all stock, red, a good bike.

After stealing the wheels I was left wondering what fun could be had with a monster when left to my own devices and I think we found the way. I sourced a set of Sport classic wire wheels and a handful of other bits and started to goto work on the bike. The first thing to do was to paint the red away which I did with BMW's laguna sec blue (the same color as my race bikes at the time), then was the wheel swap, slipper clutch, power commander, clip ons and a saw to the exhaust.

The result was awesome: A loud, fun little run around with a decent amount of power. One of the biggest challanges was gettinf the gold line brakes to clear the spokes on the wire wheels (remember Ducati's solution to this was to use smaller, less brakes which I was having none of). My solution was to mill down the calipers until they cleared, the risk was blowing into the backs of the calipers and making a mess of my mill (this never happened luckly!)

Here was the bike in 2008 when it was in my possession still

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