TECHNICAL
SCRAMBLER PLUS
CHECK OUT PROJECT
“5S”, THE SCRAMBLER
WITH ALL THE EGGWORDSTHE BEARPHOTOS
RIZOMA/THE BEAR
G
eorge S. Kaufman, the American
critic, after seeing a forest planted
by a friend reportedly said “This is what
God could have done if He’d had the
money.” We are inclined, after seeing our
completed Rizoma Scrambler, that “This
is what Ducati could have done if they’d
had the money.” That’s not a criticism
of Ducati. After all, not everybody will
want to change their Scrambler the
way we have – or at all! And of course
the changes cost money. Ducati had to
build the bike to a price that you and I
could afford. And the current Scrambler
is a beautiful piece of work anyway;
but leave it to Rizoma, another Italian
company, to make it even better looking.
Take a look at what we’ve done, and
let us know what you think. We suspect
that Ducati might have been able to do
this – but then we wouldn’t have had the
fun of personalising their product.
THE CONCEPT
Anybody can bolt accessories onto
out of the Ducati parts catalogue.
Some came from our favourite parts
suppliers, such as the seat which is from
Mustang in the USA and is a lot more
comfortable than the original. And
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Ikon shock with its red spring.
So, the 5S Concept was built on a solid
base. But we weren’t ready for the full
effect that the Rizoma parts would have,
not just because they were beautiful in
their own right, but because they each
added something to the bike... Let’s take
it from the front.FRONT FENDER ZDM129A
Yes, it’s what we call a mudguard.
This is made of brushed aluminium
and unpainted, and probably made
the biggest difference of all the partsa bike. I’m sure you’ve seen bikes
that are carrying just a bit too much
bling without telling much of a story.
We looked at the impressive Rizoma
catalogue and the Scrambler supplement
and we could see a very interesting
and consistent bike emerging from the
available range. The words that came to
mind were ‘slick’, ‘smooth’ and ‘slim’;
altogether ‘striking’; so welcome to the
“5S” Scrambler.
The way this project worked out was
interesting. A lot of bikes are changed
by accessories in small, incremental
ways; the total effect is there, but it’s
subtle. The BMW GS we equipped with
accessories from the same manufacturer
a few issues ago is a case in point.
There is nothing very subtle about
the effect of the changes we made to
the Scrambler. Just about every time we
replaced something, we found that we
had changed the entire look of the bike.
Before we could get into the Rizoma
catalogue, we needed a few other
changes (we have reported on these).
Some of them, like the headlight guard
and the black tank panels, came straight