[Ducati] A whole other 'nuther Desmosedici Report :-)

[Gleeb Gliber Galactica Gavorti]

This was a 'nuther lovely Desmosedici article I got of a 'nuther Duc
list (DESMO)


Can the Duc list go in on one of these together, maybe?  $1000
Donation gets you a 100-mile ride.  Or a track day on her (tires not
included, $65,000 (cash) security deposit required).

Like, we could buy it to give us credibility as a wholeheartedly
insane (in a good way) group of linguine-heads.  I've got the Security
covered if she lives at MY house.

Ride/Read well,

G



The hype, the doubts, the cynicism, all are blown away the moment you
press the starter. If you thought the Ducati Desmosedici RR would be
diluted - a mere race replica of the Italian company's awesome 990cc
GP6 MotoGP weapon, the world's fastest grand prix motorcycle but with
its teeth extracted - then the furious bark from the exhaust, which
makes a mockery of the word "idle" as the V-four motor settles into
its hunting growl, vapourises that idea in a moment.

Man and machine in harmony: after mastering the race-bike handling,
the Ducati begins to feel like an extension of your body

Of course it's easy to doubt the worth of a bike that costs more than
a Porsche, in this case a terrifying £42,000, which is almost five
times more than Suzuki's GSX-R1000, hitherto the most dynamically
accomplished sports bike you could buy. Can the Duke possibly be five
times better? Can it provide five times more excitement or
satisfaction? You can talk about the badge, exclusivity and exoticism
as much as you like, but surely such terms are used to cover up a
shortfall in the riding experience? Yes, you get three years' free
servicing, no bad thing for a Ducati, some might say, but even if the
Desmosedici RR is marginally better than any other road bike in the
way it goes, stops and corners, then surely in the end, after paying
all that money, you've just been had?

The sound alone reassures you that no one is pulling the wool over
your eyes: the ba-ba-ba-ba throb is pure MotoGP Ducati V-four with
only a reduction in volume, not quality (and it's not even much of a
reduction if you fit the race exhaust that comes with every bike).
That, in turn, tells you that the insides of the motor are packed with
racing genes. The full specifications have been jealously guarded for
several years, because they so closely match those of the MotoGP
bikes. But this year the MotoGP formula switched from 990cc to 800cc
(and Ducati looks like taking the championship with a development of
this very same technology) so at last we can be told.

The 998cc engine's bore and stroke are full-on, race-bike oversquare,
at 86mm x 42.6mm; the massive valves, controlled desmodromically
rather than by springs, are set at the same angle as the race bikes'
and indeed the centres of the gear-driven camshafts, finger followers,
crankshaft and so on are all identical to the GP6's. The crankpins are
staggered 70 degrees apart, giving firing intervals of 0-90-290-380
degrees, what Ducati calls a Twin Pulse firing order that offers the
best balance between driveability, traction and transmission
reliability. The pistons are so wide and shallow that they look like
something to stand your glass of Chianti on, and differ in design from
the GP6's only in having two compression rings instead of one. All
this technology produces 197bhp, yet the motor is tiny, a mere seven
tenths of an inch wider than the 1098 Ducati V-twin, and much shorter
in height and length.

The chassis comprises a Ducati signature tubular steel trellis bolted
to the engine, the swingarm is attached to the rear of the power unit
and the carbon-fibre tail doubles as the rear subframe. The torsional
stiffness is huge, almost double that of the 1098, which is hardly
made of spaghetti. The forks are by Ohlins and are the first
gas-pressurised units to be fitted to a road bike, while the damper is
from the same company and offers a bewildering array of adjustments.
Forged magnesium wheels are another first for a roadgoing machine; all
the surfaces are subsequently machined and the attention to detail
goes right down to the non-symmetric brake disc carriers, designed to
take more force in one direction than the other and thereby save vital
ounces. As Ducati's technical director Andrea Forni says, don't brake
hard when going backwards… The electronic dash is the same as a 1098's
and the standard road-bike switchgear looks incongruous on the RR. But
the other peripherals are lovingly created - it takes 45 minutes to
machine each footrest hanger from solid. Even the brake and clutch
levers fold up to give them more chance of survival in a crash.

The hype, the doubts, the cynicism, all are blown away the moment you
press the starter

Happily, that's one claim I didn't get to test. The rest I could vouch
for even by the end of the pit lane at the breathtaking Mugello grand
prix circuit near Florence, after I'd snicked the bike into gear,
heard the dry clutch rattle mute and felt the bike fire me out onto
the track with its ferocious aural goading. The engine is magnificent,
its performance magnified by having just 377lb dry weight to shift,
which gives a nominal power-to-weight ratio of 1,150bhp per ton.
Ultra-short-stroke it might be, but it pulls cleanly, evenly and
strongly from low down the rev range, the horsepower building in an
even rush that kicks hard at 7,000rpm and keeps on cascading like a
bursting dam right up to the rev limiter at 14,200rpm. There's no
tailing off, no let up, and the exhaust note is so deep that at first
you keep hitting the limiter. How you're supposed to watch the rev
counter with the twistgrip turned I don't know, as this bike is so
projectile fast that it's all you can do to process what's going on
outside the cockpit, let alone in it. A helpful red light winks as the
revs approach the red line but even looking out for that is hard work
- at the end of Mugello's main straight the bike is nudging 185mph and
you can't even see the approaching turn until you've almost hit your
braking marker.

And it's right there, where you must suddenly lose 140mph or so and
heel the bike right to drive uphill in the other direction, that the
Desmosedici difference really shows. Yes, it's faster than any other
road bike and not so far off Ducati's first MotoGP machine, the V-four
990cc GP3; I rode that for Telegraph Motoring in 2003 and I can assure
you that the RR is not a lot slower. But it's in the corners that it
really feels like a grand prix racer rather than a super-sporting road
bike. For all its stupendous power, the engine is forgiving thanks to
its unexpectedly wide spread of torque; choose the wrong gear through
a turn (because you're gibbering into your helmet) and that mighty
motor will pull you through. However, the chassis takes no prisoners.
The riding position merges man and machine perfectly, but in terms of
feedback it's like the first time you switched from dial-up to
broadband - too much information too fast. While you're trying to
cope, every response of the bike to your now clumsy inputs is
magnified five times over. Now you realise how you actually have to
row a Honda FireBlade through turns, how a Yamaha R1 mushes around
corners, how a Suzuki GSX-R is soft and woolly. Pull the Desmosedici
RR's bars in the usual way and it flicks like a switch for the inside
kerb; correct yourself and it runs wide, so you pull it back again,
zig-zagging through turns like a racetrack tyro.

You have to recalibrate all your inputs, make them delicate, accurate,
positive and confident, or, frankly, you'll look like a bit of an
idiot. But then it all starts to come together and the machine scribes
inch-perfect arcs, driving the specially made Bridgestone rubber - the
stickiest road tyres the company has ever made - with arm-wrenching
force while your whole riding world shifts onto a different plane. And
when you do get it right, the Desmosedici turns into a glorious,
beautiful extension of your senses that justifies every last penny.

Forty-two thousand pounds? Is that all?


-- 
Bikes are life.  Cars are obstacles.

The floggings will continue until morale improves.

The doctors say I'm NOT Deranged.  I'm just "Differently Arranged."