The Tale Of The Ducati – Pt.5

The email to Ducati clung to my fingers as they reluctantly depressed the keyboard rhythmically…

I had to get another document that was identical to the one they had already supplied, apart from one, minor difference. I hated every moment of it, because I knew that the request was completely unreasonable and that the poor secretary who, until this point, had been very nice and helpful, would shortly think I was being ridiculous for the sake of annoying her…

I sent the email, and later that day dropped her a call to apologise for the ridiculousness. After the expected back and forth and general government-worker-bashing that was inevitable, she promised that she would do what she could to make it happen. She reminded me that Ducati would never usually provide this letter in the first place and I was lucky to have gotten that much, let alone dictate its content.

In a couple of days I received an email with an attachment. The document had arrived that I hoped would solve my problems, except…

“The bike was manufactured from Ducati Bologna on 16th June 2004”

Does not make grammatical sense…

It seems in a petty act of rebellion against menial tasks, the mild mannered secretary had modified 1 word in the letter, from “supplied” to “manufactured”. While technically this was all I asked her to do, I would have thought it obvious that the letter would be required to make grammatical sense… maybe I was hoping for too much of a secretary, whose job it is to manage and produce written correspondence for a living…?

It was the best I was going to get, because clearly she was not going to help me anymore. I sent ALL my documents back to the DVLA (hard copy of course – god forbid they operated in the 21st century) along with the, still yet to be cashed, cheque.

I waited

And waited…

Followed up – and was told it was in progress. Of course I was back at the bottom of the pile again now…

Waited some more

Finally a letter arrived and I tentatively opened it, feeling the premaniciense of anger welling for what I fully expected to be another rejection letter. But, it was not. I was presented with a standard template letter informing me the registration of my bike was complete, the registration document would arrive soon and advising me of my new number plate.

Document received: Registration Document V5c

What it means: Official register of the vehicle in the UK for use on UK roads that details who is responsible for taxing it. It doesn’t actually detail who owns the vehicle, but it amounts to the same thing.

I felt a bit deflated, like I had gotten ready to explode and then put in storage. But I could now make the final preparations to ride the bike – and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.

I went straight online and ordered a number plate, paying extra to get it to me in 3 days.

I went back onto my insurance comparison website, filled in the registration plate and bought some insurance

Dusted off my motorbike gear and 3 days later got to ride my Ducati that had been unridden for over 18 months.

In total this is what it cost me:

It turned out to be a whole lot more expensive to buy, ride, fail to sell, export, ship, import, pay tax on, struggle to register and keep a bike, than rent one.

Word to the wise

At the time of writing a brand new 2020 Ducati Monster with 1 mile on the clock is selling on Bike Trader for £7,995.