"When God invented roads He painted an invisibile line of perfection. Then He invented Ducati motorcycles to follow it."

The year was 1982; I had just stepped off my friend’s 1978 Ducati 860 GTS after an idyllic thrash along one of my favorite English country roads when those words rolled from my mouth. It is a statement we still talk about when I am home in England reminiscing about the good old days with the boys.

Twenty-five years later, swooping along North Carolina’s unbelievable Route 181 on Craig Hunley’s 1978 Ducati Darmah, chasing a bright red Cagiva Gran Canyon, I have once more found this perfect line. It has taken me two days and nearly 500 miles in the saddle to adjust my mental database of riding techniques for the aged Italian machine beneath me. The bike has a long wheelbase, skinny touring tires and stiffly sprung shocks, which appear to be working against the softly sprung front fork. The rake and trail feel more like a chopper than a sport bike, and the front brake lever requires the hand strength of a gorilla. It also rewards the user with very little braking power.

But listening to the Duc’s Conti pipes booming on full noise, accompanied by the sound of the barely-filtered Delorttos inhaling gobs of mountain air on an open throttle, none of this matters. Sending shivers down my spine as it snorts and spits when I let the heavy throttle springs drop the slides, the sound of the unburned fuel backfiring in the pipes is sending me into a euphoric state of bliss. A bevel Ducati running open Delorttos and Conti pipes is heaven on earth.

Yet as perfectly as the Darmah runs, I wasn’t convinced about Craig’s decision to use Koni shocks at the rear. Slightly longer than stock and with too much spring rate, they don’t — in my humble opinion — help the front end one bit, making the front tire push. The trick, I’ve discovered, is to leave the front brake alone to eliminate any fork dive. Just roll off the gas, pull in the clutch and give the throttle a quick blip before dropping a gear and getting hard on the rear brake.

This is enough for most corners, and it is best to stay on the rear brakes to keep things settled before using the bars to lever the lazy front end in the direction “we” are headed. It takes a healthy amount of body English to get us turned, but as soon as the job is done, I recite my mantra (“throttle, throttle, throttle!”) to remind myself to get back on the gas quickly. Any delay here sees the bright red Cagiva pulling a larger gap, and running up to my self-imposed 6,000rpm redline, it’s time to snatch a clutchless up-shift before tucking in behind the clocks as we head for the next bend.

Out on this nearly-deserted mountain road, it’s magical to have found the way to communicate with Craig’s immaculate 1978 Ducati Darmah and extremely gratifying to see how much he appreciates me riding his bike so hard.