again how old is that photo, have you the remotest idea ............until Ducati say so officially, its all part of your dreams or their PR campaign. speak to Spalders about swing arms and torsion, im sure Ant can arrange a contact.
an 899 is for life........not just christmas. Where does it fit in? its not a supersport to compete with rest of the world, its almost a superbike but would be as competative as my arse, its not really a mid range bike as its too big a cc, woopidoo lets have a 899 stand alone series cos it doesnt fit in anywhere... or lets provide a watered down wet clutched poor unadjustable suspension low powered model, but call it a really long name that suggest sporting heritage but isnt really.
Road friendly version of an 1199 for people not wanting 200bhp. It doesn't need to be a race winning bike to sell well. You have a lot of opinions in the face of mounting evidence? I'm happy to debate and consider all evidence to make a balanced judgement, but you are delivering only a negative response with nothing but opinions to back up your ideas. Do you have anything valuable to add to the discussion?
Marketing has just changed people's perceptions. The original Ducati superbike was 851, then it was 916, then, as near as dammit, 1000, then 1100 and now 1200. So an 899 is still a 900 and thus not a small or middling sized bike. You're still going to have 130 bhp or so - isn't that enough? Meanwhile, as the bikes have got bigger, the roads have got worse, the speed limits have got lower, the cars, lorries and congestion have hugely increased, the speed limit enforcement has become robotised, omnipresent and much stricter. You've got the riding environment headed in direction, and power and capabilities of bikes headed in the other. Something here makes little sense. A baby Panigle (it isn't a baby, is it? More a sort of fit late adolescent) makes a lot of sense - a lot more sense than a Panigale, in fact. I decided when in the UK this week that the only bike that made any real sense in Britain was a Multistrada. Long-travel suspension for the shite roads, comfy position for sitting behind pensioners and crawling through endless built up areas, and enough oomph for finally being able to use the thing when you go on holiday abroad.
It is. But they don't make a 130 hp version yet, do they? Having lots of horses on tap is a good thing, don't get me wrong (especially if you are carting around a lot of luggage and a pillion), unless you have to pay lots more for it, it raises fuel consumption, and reduces tank range to unacceptably low levels. I found on the continental motorways that I needed to fill up when I hit the 150 kms mark - about 95 miles - on the 999. It will probably do 200 kms before the light comes on, or thereabouts, and it might do another 30 on reserve. But you don't want the mental angst of worrying about when the next services are - they could easily be 50 to 70 kms away and when you got there, inexplicably be closed or something. It's a brave person who tries to second guess their fuel consumption (though I suppose that all the electronic gizmo bikes these days tell you when you are going to run out - if you want to trust the Italians. A tank range of about 300 kms is what you really want (so long as your seat is comfortable enough and you haven't drunk too much tea).
Well its not the best thing to look at, sort of reminds me the current fireblade, swingarm looks like a boat anchor and the wheels look like the ones fitted to 90's bimota's, very generic/mass produced look about it. It just doesn't look special at all
I think it looks good. It's not as tasty as a Panigale's SSSA but in my opinion compared to it's peer group, bar the F3 800, it's a looker
