Rode 4 Ducatis today
 

Other than it being holy-crap hot (Austin), what a great day at the dealer.

Here's the down and dirty:

Monster 696: compact, great handling, not enough power
1100s: the 696 with much better rear end and amazing grunt
Hypermotard (1100): like my WR450 supermotard much better. Can't tell you why
StreetfighterS: the absolute best bike I've ridden. Thinking hard about it.

I'm going to ride the 1100S and Streetfighter again side by side to see if the SF is worth $5k. I'm thinking it probably is...

I think that streetfighter (S!!) would be the bike to own for many, many enjoyable years. It surely looks to be remarkable.

this guy splits lanes past me regularly with the streetfighter. the sound is amazing. when i see him coming, i kill the radio and roll down my window, and scoot my truck over...

i think the SF is the perfect arguement that one must own more than one bike. that would be the best san francisco commuter (or the KTM superduke)..but it would make you curse the maker on a long roadtrip. there a big GS beemer steps up...if i ever fall back into my motorcycle habit, i would need to quit pelican..

I sat on one the other day at the dealer's.

It's much more than just a super-bike. It's also an anti-hemorrhoid device!

Last week I rode my lowly '86 Honda VF500 Interceptor to work every day and happened to end up following a '95 Ducati 900 home a couple of the days. Both days we both chose to ride the same 10 mile twisty section on the way home. It has very few safe passing zones and when we came to the first one, we both jumped out and shot by a group of cars. I am pretty sure he was winding hard as the passing zone was short and he tucked as he pulled out. I suprisingly stayed very close to him with my old 500cc Interceptor. What gives? Are these older Ducatis dogs? I occasionaly watch the classified ads for used Ducatis, but I would have assumed the 900's were a big bunch faster than my old 500. We had a blast chasing one another thru the twisties at a somewhat cautious pace.

In stock form, the liquid cooled Duc's engines have a serious performance advantage over their air-cooled namesakes. There's something to be said for big displacement cylinders, 4 valves per bore and liquid cooling.

I'm going to try my best to get the SFS, hopefully by next weekend's trackday. I've never felt such a bike, ever. The power's very controllable and the bike sticks like glue. Ergos are excellent.

Yabut-the 2v bikes have torque out the wazoo, and are in some ways more rideable than the 4v bikes. Don't get me wrong, the Desmoquattros are much more sophisticated, capable machines, but somehow I miss the siren song of the 2v's.

As to the original question, on the street, a well ridden VFR500 is not going to look like dead meat to a 900ss, but put equal riders on a track, its not an issue, trust me.

And as to the riding position, well, if you get used to carrying your weight on the balls of your feet, and gripping the narrow tank w/ your knees (it helps to have italian dimensions-short legs, normal torso) they are actually pretty darn comfy, just an aquirred taste.

:(

this was my first bike! i had the one with the maroon colored tank. cannot for the life of me remember the year. GREAT BIKE! for the record, i had a 70something CB pass me in the twisties on that bike. the dude was dragging his crankcase on the turns. it was a sight to behold. if i had to guess, i would say you were the better rider.

I'm trying to like the streetfighter - but I'm just not digging the looks.

I think a 999R is still on the top of my list when I come back to the states.

a fella could go on forever when it comes to personal taste...bottom line is having the means to own a Duc is a great thing.

Yours must have been an earlier one as the '86 VF500's like mine were all red, white and blue with slightly different fairings than the earlier bikes.

I think the guy on the Duc is a good rider as I have seen him over the years driving to work... He rides nearly every day spring/summer/fall. We were not racing on the public streets, but I was fairly confident he was pouring the coals to it when we jumped out to pass the string of cars. I just was suprised the bike was not motoring away from me 50-100 mph. All that said, there is a pretty good chance I may have to buy a used one someday. The d@mn things are drop dead gorgeous. :)

My own '93 900 SS modded with Keihen flat slides, Termi exhaust, Cosworth 12:1 pistons, and some mild head porting made 74 hp and 60-some-odd ft lbs at the rear wheel on a dyno just last month. The stock 900 SS's (two of them) that ran were under 60 hp. I got the impression from a lot of folks' reactions (comparing their runs to previous runs on other dynos) that this was a particularly "stingy" dyno, with their numbers being well down from what they had gotten elswhere. Even so, the modern 600's were a good 20 hp up on my bike.

At any rate, there is a big difference between a stock bike and even a slighted hopped-up bike. They do have a reputation in Ducati circles as being real dogs right out of the box, but they also have a reputation for responding very well to some simple mods. The difference between my numbers and the couple of stock bikes points to that.

My first bike was also a 500 interceptor, red, blue and white. It was a 1984, first year I think. If I remember right it had 64hp. Loved that bike, it could get in the upper 60's for mileage if you could behave, light as a feather, you whip around the corners like a bicycle.

So far I really like my 696 Monster. Some people complain that it is a bit slow off the line, but the fix for that is to go with the 14 tooth front sprocket. Maybe because I only weigh 160lbs it seems quick to me. Of course "quick" is relative. But the bike has 80 hp and only weighs 335 lbs.