First ride impressions

D K said:

Hello everybody.

Got really fortunate that someone backed out, so I got in front of the line pretty quickly.

150 or so mile ride yesterday in the twisties in northern California.

My first impression was that the bike was pretty light. It feels a little small, but nothing I can't change around later.

I was pretty impressed with the engine. This is my first wet clutched duc, so quite different to the 916's of old.
I think the mapping is pretty good, although, it could use some tweaking right off throttle. 0-1/8th throttle let's say.

The gearbox definitely needs some thought. As most ducs, they break in over time, so I'm hoping this is the case as well and I'm not too fussed at this point.
I did get at least 10 false neutrals on the way home. Mostly on the down shifts.
They in itself aren't so bad, but if you're loaded up and have a fistful of throttle - and now find yourself in neutral - that might not be ideal. You have to wait for the revs to come back down, otherwise you are trying to enter a gear when the revs are too high and that's not good.
Not so easy to think about when you are leaned over in front of a semi truck entering a tunnel....
Another issue is the shift lever is too short and slightly awkwardly placed. Needs adjusting and possibly lengthened.

Let's talk about the suspension.....
When I hit a speed bump in the dealer parking lot, one of my hands came off the bar.
I ride with a pretty light grip, so I wasn't ready for that one.
Ducati definitely missed the boat when it comes to suspension valving on this one.
On the highway, when it's smooth, the suspension seems to work really well, but when you hit bumps, then you are going to go for a loop.
To me, the slow speed valving (which is much harder to control) is fairly decent, but the high speed valving is way too stiff. Too much rebound as well.
That needs to be though out better. It doesn't cost any more money to valve suspension correctly vs. incorrectly.

Then let's talk about the seat.
What is that???
It's way too hard and the dip on the front part keeps you in one place and is quite uncomfortable.
It needs to be a little higher in the front, a little narrower and slightly softer.
After 150 miles my ass felt like I just pulled a dime in the pen.

Tires.
I was pleasantly surprised. They have a lot more grip than I thought and behaved pretty well. I didn't get too low of course, but I could tell you should be able to at least scrape the pegs if you wanted to. So that's good news.

Overall, I give the bike as it stands a B which could easily be turned into an A- with very minimal tweaking and inexpensive mods.

YMMV

David

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Jerry Winder said:

Good review that David, I agree on all points except the gearbox, I reckon I got the only good one to come out of the factory, no false neutrals in nearly 1000 miles now! Nice a Ducati with a wet clutch isn't it, not sounding like a sack of spanners

Spot on about the suspension too, I've got a fully adjustable front end on its way from Italy and it can't get here soon enough.

Jerry

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DenverDuc said:

I haven't hit any false neutrals, but I absolutely cannot get it into neutral when the motor is running and the bike is stopped. It's easy to find neutral while slowing down dropping from 2nd gear, but if I stop completely it just jumps from 1-2 and 2-1. Not a big deal because it will get better with more miles.

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Jerry Winder said:

Good review that David, I agree on all points except the gearbox, I reckon I got the only good one to come out of the factory, no false neutrals in nearly 1000 miles now! Nice a Ducati with a wet clutch isn't it, not sounding like a sack of spanners

Spot on about the suspension too, I've got a fully adjustable front end on its way from Italy and it can't get here soon enough.

Jerry

Click to expand...