Hope you didn't rag it too much @Pete1950 , thats the one I'll be riding Monday when mines in for recalls... Loomies busy ??
Pikes Peak - £thousands extra for a lick of paint and deletion of skyhook. Not on your nelly. (apologies to @nelly)
@Pete1950. Is that Snell's demonstrator? I'll be on it Monday week whilst my master cylinder gets done and hopefully it'll be a tad warmer by then. Keen to see if my bum can tell any difference, and by then it should have a few more miles to loosen up (now, now, I mean the bike). I agree about the colour scheme. The grey 1200 at least had a red frame to cheer it up, but all 1260's apart from the PP appear to have grey frames. Shame but you can't see it when you are riding.
@Pete1950 Could you give me your appraisal on the Oberon slave cylinder after you've used it for a while, was it worth it, and if you don't mind how much cost in total.
Don't take this the wrong way, but do you wear prescription glasses and if so are they polarised? You'll find that QS systems tend to use a shorter lever as it translates to a more direct input by the rider, which is required as the load-cell needs has a finite range within which to work. If the load-cell doesn't read a very obvious push/pull then it won't cut/blip the throttle and the whole process stops right there. Completely agree with that observation, in that it does feel quite a lot more eager to rev - not something that I would have expected from the longer stroke. That said, if you take some liberties at low rpm the difference shines through compared to the '15 DVT lump, and then once you're out on a motorway the top gear roll-on is much improved. Now I've been riding it for a few days I've also realised that the gearing is a little longer too. While running in the '15 DVT, in top gear on the motorway I found that you could very easily reach the ceiling speed permitted during the break-in period and end up spending a while sat there just covering miles without fear of getting too badly knicked. On the 1260 if you do that you'll loose your license - very easily.
I have had Oberons fitted on previous bikes, so I expect it will be the same on this bike. The OEM clutch slave is not too good, and prone to go wrong. The Oberon works perfectly, smooth and light in operation, looks good, and doesn't leak. Which is why loads of people fit them. I prefer it in black - other colours are available. Basic cost is £80, plus the cost of fitting & bleeding plus VAT. I now have the OEM clutch slave cylinder for sale: £100. Incidentally the 1260 Multistrada appears to have a new and different clutch slave from the 1200s. Presumably it will be better than the previous type (?) - bad news for Oberon's sales if so.
Rain, you said you were happy that you made the jump to the 1260 but, would you consider the 1260 to be that much a better bike than your previous 2015 dvt?
A good write up tbh. Thought about an MTS, but decided against it and went for a Monster 1200R. The Gearbox was the same until I'd done a 1000 miles or so. It will bed in as you use it more and I prefer to find neutral when rolling. Seems quite funny, my original 12 MTS was Black with Gold wheels (Pic included) and I like the Grey with the Gold rims too. 1 think I changed to help with turning and stop it running wide in corners when making progress was to add the Semi-Active Ohlins ECU from FTR in Suffolk. It totally transformed the handling into sublime handling. However the M12R is grin factor from Ear to Ear when making speedy progress, just need to get rid of the ugly standard exhaust.
Apologies for the delay in replying. My ability to assess and compare the differences between the two bikes in day-to-day practical use, apart from the really obvious differences, has been a bit of a slow burn. You could look at many of the improvements and declare that they're either just "nice to have" or "a minor improvement". I'm still only 300 hundred miles in so it is still early days, but I'm finding my enthusiasm for riding the 1260 is growing from merely refreshing my "fairly well used but only mildly tired" 1200 DVT, to really looking forward to the next 1260 experience. The bike isn't improving with miles being added, the differences just becomes much more obvious the more miles I do. Today if you parked a brand new 1200S Touring DVT and a brand new 1260S Touring side-by-side and told me I can only ride the 1260 if I'm prepared to pay £2K more, then I'd take it. It's a no brainer. The extra £2K represents an approx. 12% price increase and I think it's fair to say the 1260 is 12% better. It's not massive, but it's not unnoticeable either - which is a broadly accurate reflection on where the general opinion of the 1260 lies. When you're also considering the depreciation of your pre-owned DVT then it's obviously a lot harder to justify, and I can totally understand why many are hesitant. The price increase coupled with depreciation makes it quite a kick in the teeth to get a 12% improvement - it's not an amount that's going to induce sleepless nights just before collecting a new 1260S. For me, my mind-set is firmly on only leasing this type of bike from this particular brand. I intend to ride it and bang on the miles and use it in all weathers and enjoy it while I totally commit it to do the job it was designed to do, therefore I have absolutely no desire to commit to this particular lump of metal in my garage beyond that which I'm contract to, and I have no emotional attachment at all - it's a tool. My time to change was at the beginning of Feb, and that date was set in stone 2 years ago. I was always going to change no matter what. But if you wanted to point at just one thing - it's that 1260 engine. It's bloody good, makes loads of torque low down and requires no effort to go quick and a much better match for the intended use. I always felt a little underwhelmed by the 1200DVT performance (especially prior to any ECU updates) but the 1260 isn't lacking at all so far.
Notwithstanding that the review by Rainman, gives a great insight into what is undoubtedly a really positive development of this model from the DVT, I had a close-up check-out of an MTS Touring version at Ducati Peterborough, with an incredibly helpful guy in their showroom. Much cleaner lines, panel quality looks loads better and they've definitely cleaned-up the rider/cockpit area, no end, amongst numerous other obvious improvements. But, although really a relatively minor issue, one thing stood out for me and it was a purely cosmetic issue. My god, that carbuncle that has been placed over the water-pump casing, in terms of what I can only assume, is in the name of protection, is a design abomination! How the Ducati design crew could let that get past the 'eye-candy' squad, defies logic, not that I hasten to add, would the boil on the side, stop me from considering the bike, however, something would have to be done about that for me, in the longer term. Just saying........
The "carbuncle" was a disappointment to me, not just because of the cover but because the pump was there and not tucked away as on the XDiavel.
There was a bit of a lag on the dvt off/on throttle response while the dvt thing did it's stuff. Has this improved on the 1260???
Did you find this lag when throttle was set to high/sport as well ? I found this all but cured that....
I've got 2013 PP and test road the Dvt last year and found a lag in response similar to turbo lag when you was on/off the throttle or changed to fully open throttle where the the Dvt system adjusted and it put me off getting the dvt. Not ridden 1 since and was just wondering wether they sorted that in updates to the dvt or wether the 1260 has improved in that area
