This morning I said a final goodbye to an old friend: I sold my Ducati Sport Classic 1000. Its departure marked a confluence of its appreciating value and my depreciating physical flexibility: I simply had to acknowledge that, no matter how much I enjoyed riding it, the very sporty riding position required more contortion than my 69-year-old frame found comfortable.

I first acquired an interest in Ducatis when Cycle magazine, which was my motorcycling bible in the 1970s, gave a glowing review of the GT750. The same engine, or a breathed-upon close facsimile of it, won the Imola 200 in the hands of Paul Smart in 1972. In 1977, a similar Ducati, ridden by Cycle editor Cook Neilson and built by Neilson and fellow Cycle journalist and tuner Phil Schilling, won the Daytona 200. That Daytona-winning Duke was more than a little bit special, featuring custom parts in titanium and magnesium, and a close-ratio gearbox built by the racing car transmission specialist Webster Gears at a cost of $1,400 – about the price of a new Honda CB750 in those days.

Both Smart and Neilson’s achievements were remarkable because they beat strong fields of the best and most powerful bikes of the era. Neilson said in an interview 40 years later: “There were bikes in the field that went fast, and bikes that handled and stopped. Only one that day did all three.” That combination came across clearly in Cycle’s review of the GT750: here was a bike that wasn’t as powerful as the Japanese competition, but it was lighter, had better brakes and handled like it was on rails.

I bought one, a 1974 model, second hand in 1976 and loved it. The handling was every bit as good as the tests claimed, and the smoothness from the 90-degree V-twin was uncanny. I owned that bike for 12 months and rode it for six; the other six were spent in and out of the repair shop. The quality control wasn’t great: oil would come out of a breather tube and foul the air cleaner; the feeble contacts in the rear light would vibrate and blow the bulb (nine times on one night-time trip through Wales). I recall working on that bike in the roadway outside my flat that winter with snow swirling around me. The service agent wasn’t great, either: I picked it up from the Italian Motorcycle Centre in Clapham late one afternoon, parked outside the local chippie in Lee Green to buy supper, and when I kickstarted the beast the rear carb just blew straight off! I’d had enough; sadly, it had to go.

When Ducati brought out the GT1000, Sport Classic 1000 and Paul Smart replica in 2006 as a modern-day homage to the 750s of the 1970s, I had to have one. Standing around in the dealership waiting for my 750 to get fixed 30 years earlier, I would gaze with great admiration at the yellow 750S on the showroom floor, so I naturally gravitated towards the Sport Classic. A test ride at Daytona Motorcycles in West Ruislip put a wide grin on my face and I was sold: this was what the original 750 should have been!

Back at the dealership, I had to choose between the yellow, black and red. The black spoke to me. The brand new bike on the showroom floor had been fitted with a Termignoni racing two-into-one exhaust that was lighter than the original, looked superb and sounded awesome. The salesman asked whether I wanted it with or without the Termi system, which he said cost £1,200. That was a helluva price for an exhaust system 15 years ago (and still is today, in my opinion), but the salesman spoke to the manager and they offered it to me for £300. I guess they didn’t want the hassle of talking it off and re-installing the original. Anyway, I know a bargain when I see one, and the black Ducati with racing exhaust was mine.

That was early February 2008. I rode the bike whenever the fancy took me and the weather was right. I soon tired, literally, of the original low clip-ons and replaced them with higher Ducati bars, still clip-ons but giving a slightly less stooped riding stance. I had two other bikes at that time, a Valkyrie and the Suzuki TL1000S, and a car, and work took me overseas, and then I got engaged. So the single-seat Ducati got used less frequently than it perhaps deserved. It was a joy to ride, though: fast, responsive, tracking true through the twisties, looking fabulous and sounding like a motorbike should! It was an elemental bike, stripped to the basics: a 1,000cc V-twin engine, two wheels, a tank and a saddle. I thought of it as the sort of bike Ogri would ride of he ever lost his Vincent.

A year after buying the Duke, I got married and we moved to Dubai where my wife was based. In 2010, I took a job in Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit and shipped my three bikes out to join me there, the Valkyrie having since been replaced by a Rocket III. The idea was that I’d get to ride them more often if we were all at least in the same place, but the reality was different. For some of the year, it was too hot to spend much time riding, with summer temperatures often in the mid-40s and occasionally touching 50 degrees C; and the vast majority if the roads were wide, straight highways with nary a wiggle in them to get the juices flowing. So in 2011 I shipped the Duke and the Suzuki to South Africa, where we planned to retire, eventually.

In South Africa, the Sport Classic was rare enough to attract lots of admiring looks and fun enough to get me out riding whenever I was down there. Regular readers (I have regular readers?) may recall my complaints about the 1.2km of dirt road that connected our home to the nearest tarred road. The road was so rough that it caused the indicator supports to break, and cost me a taillight, so sadly the bike didn’t get out much there either. Eventually, two years ago, we shipped the Ducati (and the Rune I’d bought in Cape Town) back to the UK, and I put about 500 more miles on the clock. I became increasingly conscious that the riding position was causing me neck ache, which hadn’t been a problem in the early days. I was now more of a sit-up-straight biker. So logic dictated that it was time to sell the Sport Classic, which happily had appreciated considerably in value over the years. I think it’s gone to a good home, to a collector who already owns an impressive array of modern classics. As we loaded it on to the van a few hours ago, I noted that it had 3,490 miles on the clock from new. I think the new owner has got himself a bargain. Farewell, old friend!