BIKETEST: Ducati 1198S.The Ducati 1198S has the sensitivity of a thoroughbred, but caution should be exercised when braking, writes GEOFF HILL
I HAVE a confession to make: at the age of 52-and-three-quarters, I have just ridden my first Ducati.
I know I should have done it when I was 18, but I was busy having endless discussions with girls about Cartesian dualism in an attempt to get them into bed.
As a result of such naivety, it was years before I finally became a man at the gentle hands of a Tibetan shepherdess, after I prevented one of her sheep plummeting into the ravine below.
Sadly, as we were otherwise engaged, the sheep did it again, falling hundreds of feet into the hammock of a yak herder.
Luckily for him, he wasn’t in it at the time, but he came up the next day to enquire about the matter, they fell in love and that was the end of that.
So it was that last week I summoned the brio to drive to Ballymoney and go to Billy Lyons, Northern Ireland’s Ducati dealer, to find a gleaming red 1198S warming up outside with an angry purr, like a lion about to feast on a juicy wildebeest.
“I assume you’ll want copies of my driving, dog, TV and poetic licences,” I said, aware of the bureaucratic ways of dealers in the city from whence I had come – and the fact that Billy was just about to let me, a man he’d never met, loose on an extremely expensive and powerful bike.
“Not a bit of it. Just take it easy until you get used to her. First gear’s lethal, and so are the brakes,” he grinned.
When the 1198 came out, the first thought of Ducati fans was that it was a bored-out 1098, since it looked exactly the same.
But the difference was under the skin, with 10 extra horses from bigger pistons, new con-rods, a heftier crank, oval throttle bodies and new gearbox.
Not only that, but they shaved 4kg off the weight, and you don’t need to be Einstein to work out what more power plus less weight equals.
Acceleration is of the slingshot variety as you snick up through the slick, six-speed box all the way from low-down grunt to a 10,500 redline, remarkable for a V-twin, accompanied by a visceral snarl from the twin underseat pipes.
As for winding off speed at the other end, Billy wasn’t joking about the brakes. I’d hardly squeezed the front brake before it bit so firmly that, had he not warned me, I could well have done my first stoppie, and promptly fallen over the bars.
However, astonishing as the going and stopping ability of the 1198S is, it’s cornering where the genius of that engine redesign and the Ducati Traction Control becomes clear.
First of all, the engine has huge amounts of low-down torque just where you need it for powering out of corners. Secondly, if you feed in too much throttle, the DTC controls the ignition and as a last resort restricts the fuel supply to make sure you don’t end up upside down over the nearest hedge.
Four discreet lights on the dash tell you which of the stages the DTC is at, although of course you won’t be looking at them, just grinning inanely at the way this machine whips smoothly and quickly out of corners.
As for handling, it has all the sensitivity of a thoroughbred without the twitchiness of, say, the ZX-10 Ninja. Think Black Beauty rather than Shergar hearing midnight footsteps outside the stable door. And beauty is the operative word. Ducati were very wise not to change the exquisite look of the 1098, for even standing still, its successor is a bike that looks fast.
Faults? No slipper clutch, but to be honest, the standard clutch is so smooth that you’d need to be fairly ham-fisted to lock up the rear wheel under severe engine braking. And with those incredible Brembo brakes, why would you need to?
Taller riders will also end up with a stiff neck and wrists from the low bars, and be unlikely to see anything other than their elbows in the rear view mirrors.
Mind you, Billy did say they were designed for looking inside your elbows, rather than outside. I think he was serious. Me, I was too busy driving back to the city with a smile on my face, while keeping a careful lookout for plummeting sheep.
Factfile
Engine:liquid-cooled eight-valve 1,198cc V-twin with Desmodromic cam, 170bhp @ 9,750rpm, 97lbft torque @ 8,000rpm
Transmission:six-speed, chain final drive
Suspension:front fully adjustable, 43mm Ohlins USD forks; rear fully adjustable Showa monoshock
Brakes:front dual 330mm discs, four-piston Brembo radial monobloc calipers, rear 245mm disc, two-piston Brembo caliper
Wheels/tyres:10-spoke forged aluminium/Pirelli Super Corsa, 120/70 17 F, 190/55 17 R
Rake/trail:24.5°/97mm
Wheelbase:1,430mm
Fuel capacity:15.5l
Dry weight:169kg
Price:€22,000. Contact Ducati Dublin, 01-460 3168, motopoint.ie.
( Test bike £16,495, Millsport Motorcycles of Ballymoney, 028-2766 7776)