Sunday, August 6, 2017

Ducati Panigale 899 — The Review, The Dirt.

Ducati? Never rode one.
It's true, I have never been on a Ducati, not a Monster, not a 916, not even a Mike Hailwood Replica. And I love to ride different bikes, just never had the chance, up until now.

Smithy.
He's a strange lad at the best of times, but had a bit of bad luck recently. The GSXR750L2 that I raved about, and that he crashed at Lakeside, was stolen recently (along with five other bikes!). Bastards! 
The only upside to this dark cloud was that he went out and bought a 2014 Ducati Panigale. And those things, without a doubt, look pretty damn cool.




Let's get it ridden.
He'd only just picked it up the day before and immediately had concerns. "Be careful of the front brake, it comes back too far when you first pull it, then it's solid and wants to put you over the bars!"

Happy days. But I'm a big believer in the human body adapting to its surroundings. So a couple of swift applications will get that sorted. He also ran through a number of the drive-modes, yada yada yada. It has a quick-shifter too, cool! Toys to play with, but I just wanted to be off and riding.


Suspension.

It was a little bit out of balance in fairness. The front was pretty compliant, but the back was a bit on the firm side for my liking. We'll put that back to standard settings and try again tomorrow. Not enough time during today's test to get to grips with that.

With Showa BPF's at the front, the same as the Gixer's, the rear is somewhat controlled by a Sachs shock. That seems normal fitment for the standard Ducatis. I've heard that they can be a little firm for someone as light as me, but for Smithy it may well struggle to hold him up. 😀



A little bit of jiggery-pokery, tightening of bolts, loosening of adjusters, and this bike might keep up with a CBR600RR. But unlikely.


If there's one thing you can say about Ducati, they do knock out some lovely looking bikes. It's that Italian flair, their passion, the embodiment of pure, unadulterated lust. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm Italian, and not Welsh after all. But, again, I'm off on a tangent.


The first thing I noticed, once riding, was the wide bars — supermoto or race bike? They feel really good, great leverage, more confident in feel. The vibes are very subdued too, I was expecting a rough ride but there's hardly anything felt through the bars. In fact, the whole bike feels pretty good regarding vibration. Typical V-twin, it's moving but not ripping your arms a new one. 

The previous owner fitted rearsets which are about two-and-a-half inches long. They're horrible. Your foot barely stays on them. The tiny allen bolts securing the gear lever were both loose too, which gave a very floppy gear change. Once tightened there was a big improvement, but it still needs dropping down. At the moment you have to lift your foot off the peg to change down a gear. Hopefully adjustment will get this sorted, or I'd be putting the originals back on.

The quick-shifter is nice, but half the time I forget it's there. Rolling on in first for a quick wheelie had the engine going lame. Not sure what was going on there, detected wheel spin? I need more time with the electrical bits before I can comment.


Every angle of the Panigale is gorgeous, and even better in white. It just looks right wherever you are. 


Brakes
Call me old-fashioned, but when you buy a modern sports bike, or indeed any other type of bike, from a huge reputable dealership, you sort of want the brakes to work properly. These are Brembo's for flip's sake!

To sell and register it in my mate's name, it would've had to have had a roadworthy certificate — you know the thing, a 'safety' check. So when you pull the brake for the first time and it nearly touches the bars, but on its next application is absolutely solid and sending you over the bars, it makes you wonder whether they bothered.

If that bike was being ridden by an inexperienced ride that could've been the end. ABS or no, hit that brake going into a corner and it would be all over. But that's dealerships for you, wanting to fleece you and get you out of the door. Let's move on.



Rosso II's
They're new, and I know they work well — I used to love these tyres. But the rear was set on 46psi, the front on 32psi. I'm sorry but that's just fucked; when they leave the shop they should be on recommended pressures — 36psi front and rear. A decent mechanic would at least make sure they were set correctly if they'd just put tyres on it!

Obviously the wrong people are coming through as 'technicians'. They're messing around with high performance bikes but, more importantly, people's lives. Basically, the equivalent of Ferraris and Lambo's in the car world. And they cant even get the tyre pressures right!

And on that note, it's probably better that mechanics like that don't try to fix the brakes. I know it's a secondhand bike, but it's only three years old. A ten year-old shitter would run rings round this thing in its current state. Be very careful people.


Fluid changes have been left sadly lacking. But easily fixed.



It's unfair.
To pass judgement on the bike at the stage. Once we've fixed a couple of the issues, it'll improve and we can work on getting this thing around a couple of bends properly. At the moment it's too hard to make progress, so I'm going to leave this as a quick taster. And besides, I need a brew.

First jobs are brakes, oil, clutch fluid and suspension... watch this space.







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