Sympathy for the Devil

By: londonbikers.com | Published 01 August 2009, 01:26 | Views: 2,667 | tags: ducati, coventry, streetfighter, review, test, ride, s, naked, aggressive

On the Road

So off I set. The plan: to drive from Coventry to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, a journey I used to do some 22 years ago. From there I would drop down to Braintree via Sudbury on some A roads that I know well from my misspent motorcycling youth, then on to London. This route would take in motorways, fast flowing dual carriageways, some fantastic A roads and a few lumpy bumpy country roads for good measure.

As soon as I left the dealers I realised how light and agile this motorcycle is and, moreover, how unbelievably powerful the front brakes are; this is also true of the engine - I'm not sure, but for the first mile or so I don't think I got above third! On the approach to Coventry's ring road I had to use the indicators for the first time; the switchgear is much smaller than I'm used to and at first a little fiddly and easily mis-hit. My first junction and ‘Barp’ - a look of indignation from the driver in front and a swift apologetic lifting of my hand as I fumbled for the indicators; next junction: ‘barp’, off went the horn again, same driver, same reaction, same apology. By the time I had negotiated my way out of Coventry I had started to master the indicator switch position. With the speed increasing to 50mph, I was able to enjoy the bike a bit more and find fourth gear. It was at this point that the mirrors I'd been enjoying became difficult to use as the images were vibrating and therefore blurry, Oh well, same old same old, but as every Italian knows “it's not what’s behind that’s important, but what's in front that counts.”

Free of Suburbia

On the M45 I was able to open the throttle, forget the indicator/horn embarrassment and feel the incredible rush of power. I kept winding on the throttle, feeling the speed ever increasing, going up through the gearbox to sixth at last, now doing silly mph, oh yes this bike is fast, very fast and without a fairing or nose cone I could feel the full force of the acceleration and speed. At about the point where my arms were being dislocated from their shoulder sockets, I started to wind the throttle down and cruised at a more sensible, but above all a more comfortable speed of 80 - 85mph; anything more than 85mph quickly became too much like hard work, certainly for any sustainable amount of time. To be fair though, this is the first time I had ridden a motorcycle without a full fairing on a motorway for twenty-something years, so maybe I am just not match fit.

Off the M1 at Northampton and onto the A428 to Bedford which is a great A road for me to really acquaint myself with the Streetfighter, I was still taking it reasonably carefully coming off roundabouts and accelerating out of bends, due to the new rear tyre still having shiny sides. I started to feel exactly how agile this motorcycle is, with its sports heritage ensuring that the steering is sharp and precise; the suspension (Ohlins front and rear) soaked up the bumps in the road with no effort and in return delivered a very smooth ride, providing excellent feedback. This in turn inspired confidence and very soon any thoughts of a brand-new rear tyre were all but a distant memory.

Temptation at a Crossroads

It’s at this point that the Devil started leading me into temptation. I felt comfortable, confident and assured of my ability to handle this beast; the handling, brakes and traction control all helped build a sense of absolute control. The gearing was perfectly suited for the massive amount of power being delivered from this 1098 motor, out here on the open road there is no need to have to work the gearbox bacause the pull of this motor is unbelievable, overtaking became exceptionally easy, very safe and above all enjoyable, extremely enjoyable……’thou shalt not lead us into temptation’…. yeah right you just try not to be led by this scarlet mistress, that’s a sight I’d like to see. For those of you who know your ‘blues’ and Robert Johnson, you’ll know what I mean when I say that I, too, found myself standing at the crossroads and selling my soul to the Devil.

Punching out of another corner, eyeing up the next overtake, down a gear, engine braking into the next bend, horizon opening out in front of me as I wind open the throttle, feeling the rush again and again. Problem: I was fast running out of fast flowing A roads. “Bugger” said Pooh and Piglet too, long straight roads and dual carriageways beckoned and regularly I found them empty and quiet Time to do some testing: how does this bike pull in sixth gear with the engine turning over at the lowest possible revs without actually stalling? A quick check behind to make sure I’m alone and cleared for take off, 'cause that’s exactly what it feels like - a 747 on the runway lumbering along and then…. full thrust!

I opened the throttle all the way which produced a rumbling from deep inside the engine and a steady increase in speed, I drove through the only-to-be-expected vibrations to the sweet band of reves where the motor is spinning freely and getting faster and faster, then - lift off! Oh man! I swear if this thing had wings….
When my brain caught up with my body I was at silly, very silly, mph with my arms being torn off so I started to wind it down. That was very, very impressive.

Now the same test again, only in fourth this time; think jet fighter, aircraft carrier, catapult, afterburners and you’re somewhere near. Crack the throttle open….bang! I was gone. Suddenly the distant horizon was there with me - this is more than a jet fighter, this is the USS Enterprise engaging warp factor silly. The front end was wanting to rise, but the traction control kept it unobtrusively but firmly planted to the road thus giving a sense of absolute control which lead to the voices pushing me up through the gears and onto terminal velocity again and again (my poor arms).

For those who may want to do this on grounds of purity or cynicism without the help of the DTC (Ducati Traction Control), be warned and above all be respectful, because you just may see a little more than the sky! If the sixth gear rolling test was impressive, then this fourth gear test was unbelievable: the power was instant, delivering the same kind of punch at low revs that you’d expect in a multi-cylindered bike, from the Far East, at high revs. Only this is in a far wider and more accessable powerband.

A Second Opinion

First stop - a small village in Suffolk called Ingham, to see the Goshawk brothers who run a spray shop, BVS (Barnham Vehicle Services). These guys are perfectionists and will spot the smallest fault or defect that we mere mortals would miss, particularly me - who at that point was so in love with this Devil and all it has to offer - and could be blind to it's smaller failings.

Paul and Andy did the usual “ooh er missus”, took pictures, were very impressed with the attention to detail in the design, how much technology there was crammed into such a small space, how light it felt, the ride height, the chucky rear swinging arm etc etc etc. Then their eagle eyes spotted a few flaws: the first being oil cooler fin damage; the second, a few scratches on the front cylinder head. I have to agree with them, if I had spent the thick end of £14,300 on a motorcycle, I would be more than a little miffed if, 1500 miles later, I had similar damage. But after a little discussion, we came to the conclusion that all that is required is a small grill to help protect this area without taking away from the overall design of the bike. Ducati please note.

Next on the agenda was a ride around my hometown – well, a pose; this felt good. For a brief time I could ride around thinking that this was my bike, and no one would be any the wiser. I – it – we turned a lot of heads, eyes burning with envy and curiosity. Who is this? What is he riding? Where did he get it? …… you lucky, lucky barsteward…… I cannot tell a lie, this was good, and I was indeed a lucky barsteward. After meeting an old friend (and showing Rebecca’s son, Henry the bike – a future motorcyclist I feel, for I saw the spark in his eye as I explained the details of this machine to him), I then left for the last stage of this journey to London. But before I set off petrol was needed: 130 miles of hard and fast riding had been done and the reserve light had just come on; not a bad return from 15 litres of the 16.5 litre tank. When the reserve light comes on, it starts a second trip and counts how many miles you’ve been riding on reserve. No more than twenty miles, at sensible speeds I was told, a nice touch for someone with no sense of distance travelled.

Night Falls

Dusk was setting in as I started down the A134 to Sudbury and Braintree. Another very nice fast flowing road, and again I was tanking along, feeling the grunt from this motor although after Sudbury it was getting a little too dark to be going fast on a motorcycle that didn’t belong to me. No worries, this was an opportune moment to see what the lights are like and how the LCD panel is at night. First of all I needed to turn down the display which is way too bright at Max level (I’m not entirely sure when anyone would need it that bright). The headlight was amply bright, adjusted perfectly on dip beam and lit up the road ahead as far as anyone would need on high beam, something that my 748 lacks – I guess a sacrifice of vision over design. Once past Braintree I was on to the new dual carriageway to Stanstead, and it was then I realised how poor these mirrors really are. I’m doing 80mph, I glance in the mirror and I see multiple lights; wow were did that traffic come from? I look behind and there are three cars, evenly spaced going back at least half a mile. I look in the mirror and there are at least nine cars behind: hey ho, so now I need basic maths to determine how much traffic there is behind me. Once on the M11 things went from bad to worse with the mirrors; at one point I thought that a swarm of fire flies was now behind me. At another stage I was being chased by more cops cars than the Blues Brothers. Xenon headlamps may be bright, but when they’re vibrating in wing mirrors they look remarkably like blues and twos in the corner of one's eye. I have to be honest – sorry Ducati, but the distraction of the mirrors did a good job of spoiling the night ride down to the destination - London.

Into the City

This is the territory that this bike is designed for. This is the battleground it has to conquer to become Emperor, Lord and Master of all! Ducati already market the very successful Monster range to the well-heeled commuters and urban riders of the capital city so the Streetfighter would have to do all that its lower priced relatives could do and more!

I needed to get from the bottom of the M11 to the top of Brixton Hill, a simple enough route, but not when you’ve got this bike and it’s late at night, when the city beckons with empty roads, I was hoping it would be more fun than it would be on my 748. Bank, Liverpool Street, Cannon Street, the Barbican, the Embankment and Parliament Square all offered tight, twisty corners and bloody awful road surfaces in equal measure. But here in this labyrinth of side roads and city cut-backs, the Streetfighter started to show a whole new ability. While I was steering and picking the route, the bike was carrying me home with incredible bursts of power, being pinned to the road with the aid of the superb Ohlins rear shock and the excellent traction control now set on level 4. Each pothole, crack, manhole cover, rutting of tarmac and over-banding in the road was soaked up by the Ohlins forks as well as the rear shock, and their output was then fed back to me as positive road holding, allowing me to flick this machine around pretty well anyway I chose. Add to this the Pirelli Diablo Corsa IIIs, (120 front and a massive but responsive 190 rear tyre) and I was stuck to the road in a way that I would never have thought possible on such bad surfaces. I felt I could ride this bike in any style I so wished; I could be Rossi if I wanted or Wayne Gardener as pictured on the iconic Moriwaki Kawasaki with straight bars (oops showing my age), or Mr cool Steve McQueen making for the Swiss border in certain war film. Basically, think it and it shall be so. This bit of the journey I liked very much.

The next day was the Streetfighter’s first time in London rush-hour traffic. Being master of the city at night was all well and good, but how would it cope with the general idiotic behaviour of the normal robotic metropolis commuter? This I was looking forward too, as I had the feeling I was letting a tiger loose on the streets. If last night was about letting it run wild, then this morning was about letting it stalk its victims, without mercy. Well, I got to work quickly, very quickly; traffic seemed clear out of my path and allow me through, and at traffic lights I wouldn’t so much as drive away on green but pounce across the junction and land at the other side doing…. errrr 30mph of course. When looking at the bike from the front, I realised why the road would clear; from a rear view mirror, this bike with rider aboard looks like a monster that will devour all in its path, with mirrors sticking out like horns and a riding position that makes your elbows bow out a la Ben Spies and with the growling engine …..you get the idea.

Centrepiece

That evening was the bike’s first introduction to the Londonbikers.com weekly meet at Borough Market. For me this was always going to be both exciting and disappointing: exciting because of the expected reaction and continuous bike conversations, something I’ll never tyre of, despite the regularly repetition of answer:

“Er I picked it up yesterday, from Ducati Coventry. Yes it is amazing. Yes it is fast. Yes it is the ‘S’ version which means traction control and Ohlins and Marchesini wheels and a bit of carbon and……No-it-isn’t-mine. But I am doing a road test for LB (Londonbikers) and have got it for ten days….. So there!”

During the course of the evening there was much discussion and debate about the bike. The main topics were the radical front end, the exhaust cans on the side, the riding position and the superb design. The general opinion was, “We like very much”.

Particularly (LB member) PJ who was all for swapping his 1098’s keys for the Streetfighter’s. I’ve got to be honest, I was tempted as I have always liked the 1098; but this was not my bike to hand around and, as Andrew pointed out, this was the first time LB had been given a bike to test, “so best not smash it up…….. no pressure though.”
Thanks mate.

Nearly all of the LB’s liked the design very much, in fact there were some who said they’d never liked the design of the 1098/848 etc but really liked the styling of the Streetfighter. Mark felt that the twin cans running down the side of the bike took away from the beauty of the clean uncluttered look of a single-sided swinging arm; I know what he means, but personally it doesn’t bother me, and the flip side is, it gives more air under and around the tail area which from the rear view makes for a very sleek design.

When people sat on the bike the first comments were invariably about the lack of anything in front: no clocks to clutter the view, no poxy little nose fairing/screen. There was much discussion about the design of the head light; while nearly all liked it being slung so low, more radically than the MV Brutale, some felt that lifting it an inch or two wouldn’t hurt. Again I know what everyone meant, for at first that was my feeling too; but by now I am in love with its looks and the feeling of exposure when riding. Lifting the light and display, even by a few millimetres, would take away from the overall beauty and individuality of this design.

The mirrors were commented on regularly by the sportsbike riders - “oooh mirrors that I can actually use.” Well sorry people, but not so good on the motorway, as I have already said. But just to make it clear and to be fair, the mirrors are perfectly good around town and consequently, since that is what this bike is designed for, I’m now officially over the whole mirror thing – I’ve learned to just let it go….. Some felt the riding position was very high, but this is only a couple of centimetres higher that the 1198. Again, everyone who tried it liked it. However, there was some talk about how you couldn’t grip the sides of the tank with your knees to stop yourself sliding forward under braking. Personally, I didn’t find this a problem and was able to grip the lower part of the tank perfectly well.

The evening did highlight one area of concern though, for while pushing the bike around the market to allow Andrew to take some pictures, I noticed just how low the belly pan and oil cooler are. Although they aren’t any lower than the fairing on any sports bike, the higher and upright riding position may fool you into thinking that you have more ground clearance than you actually have and you could be tempted to roll off a high kerb; don’t, since doing so will damage the oil cooler and belly pan – ouch – expensive, so be warned.

A Pillion's View

The next day was a tube strike, so more traffic to hunt down and devour. And a whole new first, for Lucinda, my partner, needed a lift into work. So how does the Streetfighter do pillion? Well let’s face it, it’s not really designed for two. There is so much power there but so little to sit on or hold on to that any pillion is likely to be in for a rough ride - on one occasion when leaving a set traffic lights (sensibly I hasten to add) and changing into second I nearly lost Lucinda off the back. Now she isn’t exactly inexperienced at being a pillion, but the snap of power combined with the small seat meant that she was nearly off the back, scaring the life out of me; but a short dab of the front brake was enough to bump her back on. When we got to her office I picked up the impression that she didn’t enjoy it much and was not impressed: “I have been more comfortable”, or words to that effect. However, the point is that even in very heavy traffic the Streetfighter, riding two up, is as agile as ever. That night, coming back from work, on less busy roads with far less start-stop riding, Lucinda felt more comfortable and dare I say it, even enjoyed the experience. But the fact remains this is really a solo machine; a quick lift to the pub, a bit of posing around town, a thrill-seeking ride and a “oh I need to be the other side of town pronto” is about all you’ll want as a pillion, and about all I’ll want to give as the pilot. And yes that is, and I am, selfish.

A few days later I went up to Greenwich Park with my 12 year-old daughter to take some pictures and get her view on the bike with its pillion idiosyncrasies. Jess is used to riding pillion on the 748, so it was interesting to see what she thought of the ride. Her first comment: “Dad, it’s like sitting on a brick”, was closely followed by “I can feel how much power there is….and there’s not much sit on and not much behind me…… scary. But I like it. It’s cool. You should get one.” Her overall impression was very favourable and she definitely could see the advantage in having this bike over the 748 – not that she would let me sell the latter, oh no I just have to go get a Streetfighter as well.

A Sad Parting

Inevitably, and altogether too quickly, the day came for me to return the Streetfighter to Jinx at Ducati Coventry, a day I was not looking forward to and shall not forget; in fact I am still trying to come to terms with my loss (Alan, Ducati’s press manager, please note). I loved every moment of the 240 mile, 8 county return trip. I still relive it in my mind over and over again, especially the moment I overtook a line of lorries, in fourth, doing 95mph and feeling the front wanting to rise but the DTC keeping the bike firmly and reassuringly planted on the ground. One last stop was to be made in Suffolk, at the Stewart boys’ place, then on to Coventry and my journey would be done. The Stewarts were my mentors and tutors in the world of motorcycling, so it was only appropriate that John (dad), Steve and Nick should have the final words on this motorcycle and on this quite privileged and unique experience I was having. So the boys were, without question, impressed. Impressed at the amount of technology adorning this exotic Italian motorcycle. Impressed with the facts and figures that go with it. But above all impressed that this was not just a 1098 with no fairing and one or two extras thrown at it, it was its own unique breed; and that is completely the point of this bike, it is very much its own breed.

The Verdict

Would I buy this bike? Yes, no question about it. It is quite simply the best motorcycle I have ever ridden. But you do need to treat it with respect and you do need to have had some reasonable riding experience. Yes, there are a few faults: the mirrors, I think I’ve covered; a lack of protection for the oil cooler and front cylinder head, it's impractical for long motorway driving at speed, but we do have speed limits (at which it's very comfortable) and besides, who wants to be on the motorways anyway? But quite frankly these points are far out-weighed by what this bike has to offer, and plenty it does offer. Yes it has a high price tag, but you do get traction control that really does work and suspension that delivers essential feedback to the rider assisted no doubt by the lightweight Marchesini wheels. There is one more thing I would like to have seen, and this is by no means a criticism of Ducati, but a point to all motorcycle manufactures:(except Honda) - ABS. I know it’s heavy (10kgs approx) and I know it pushes the price up. But with modern brakes being so powerful, bikes like this costing so much and city roads getting more greasy – we all know how easy it is to lock up, so I personally would like to see ABS as an optional extra.

Question: should you buy this bike? Well if you like naked bikes then, yes. If you like a pure motorcycle, then yes. If you want to experience the kind of performance reserved for F1 and MotoGP drivers, then yes. If you want to be a member of and above all part of a family, then yes, buy one and join the family. As Tim Maccabee, managing director of Ducati UK, says: “Ducati makes in one year as many bikes as Honda makes in a day.” This in itself illustrates how small a firm Ducati is and how it punches way above its weight and truly holds its own: partly due to the enigma that is Ducati, partly due to the fact that it’s the epitome of Italian style and design, but mostly because it draws on its many years of race heritage to continually produce motorcycles like the Streetfighter that become the market leader time and time again. Ducati has produced the perfect sports bike replacement for us older folk, a bike for the slightly younger folk to go wild on, a bike that is surprisingly easy to drive around town for the amount of power it produces, a bike that is going to make you feel good about life and a bike that you just know has a certain individualism about it that speaks volumes about you. Go on – you know you want to. I do too, I want one and you will too, I promise. Go get a test ride, you won’t be disappointed.

So it’s with thanks to Alan Jones and Ducati UK for the loan of the bike and Patrick from Londonbikers.com for suggesting I do this test. It has been a real privilege and pleasure to do. I look forward to the next one………

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