I will be due the 600 miles service shortly and got it booked in, dealer said after the 600 mile service you can use 7000 revs till 1500 miles then no restrictions. Question for those of you lucky enough to have run yours in, after the first service did you ride it like you stole it, kept to 7k or increased the revs in line with increased mileage??
I don't ride it like I stole it - 90% time its less than 6000 RPM - but now I am passed 600 miles - I do push it - and have had the red lights up a few times I would guess that 8% of the time its around 7000 , 1.5% at 8000 and 0.5% flat out.
I was told to keep below 7K for another 1000 miles, quite honestly that was no hardship then at 1500m ( a little bit early) it was all systems go!
I'm *mostly* keeping it under 7000 until I hit 2500Km, because I plan to have this bike for the long-term and want to make sure it lasts as well as possible. Don't worry, the extra 1000RPM adds plenty of excitement - and I normally ride 2-up in Touring mode. ...of course, I'm so used to being in Touring that I forgot to switch to Sports on Saturday when I nipped out for a quick blast. Even so, DWC had the front wheel skimming the ground in 2nd, which had me torn between "woohoo!" and "but I was promised *terrifying*!" So I'll just have to switch to Sports, do it again and report back. And somehow keep one eye on the tacho during launch.
I've just done 1100 miles round the Highlands in mostly horrendous conditions, the bike had 600 miles when I set off. As the trip progressed I increased the revs slowly, and could actually feel the bike getting looser. Still haven't opened it up fully, 8000 revs was enough in the conditions, but it pulls like a train. When I had it serviced I had exactly 600 miles on the clock, but the service light doesn't come on till 620,(they didn't tell me this when I picked the bike up) so they couldn't reset the service light, so now I've got the service light on till I can find time to take it back in, just worth a mention. Don't know why my photograph thinks I'm in the States
I had the same with my service light coming on at 620 miles after I'd had the service done at 599. After a 30 mile hoon I popped back into Snells who plugged it in and turned it off. Generally I've just ridden the bike normally since the first service. This is a mixture of toodling around and going a bit mental with everything inbetween. I haven't got anywhere near the rev limiter yet as the thing is so fast that you'll be "making good progress" if you're hitting the limiter in 3rd for example. I'm very pleased with the way the bike is loosening up as the miles go on. I'm up to 2100 miles at the moment and the gear change is much smoother, no more false neutrals, the engine is lovely and flexible, and the seat is bedding in a bit (though I still don't like the forward tilt).
Its on high. Haven't tried low as I am quite tall. My Yamaha Super Tenere also had a forward sloping seat and there was an easy mod to fix it thankfully. The Ducati is not as slopey as the Yamaha, but it's definitely there and does result in a sore bum. The reason it makes your arse sore is because your buttocks are sort of "shearing" (work with me on this) - their outer surface & skin is fixed in place by your weight on the seat, but the forward tilt makes the flesh within slide forward a bit causing tension and stretching between the skin and the inner muscles. After a while this manifests itself as a sore arse which is different in nature to just having sat down for too long. It's more of a sharp sort of pain than just numb bum. By leveling the seat, this "shearing" type strain is removed. You can try this at home by sitting normally in a seat, and then without sliding forward, push your pelvis forward and you can feel the tension between the skin and innards of your bum muscles. I can see you doing this now. Around the country Multistrada owners are making odd faces and their wives are looking at them strangely. That's my theory anyway. As soon as I flattened the seat on my Super Tenere, it was super comfy. I'm going to investigate if it's possible to mode the seat to remove the few degrees of forward tilt, though I think it will be tricky due to the complexity of the design. The other alternative is to get it re-profiled, or just live with it as it's not actually that bad.
+1 on that tobers, it's not too bad when you're on twisties because you shift around on the seat, but on long sections of motorway/A roads it is uncomfortable. I also found the standard screen induced terrible buffeting at higher speeds, so I'm trying an MRA touring screen, which has taken away the buffeting but is still a little noisy, still playing with the settings on this though.
I have found that the initial lean forward is now almost gone. Maybe my the seat has flattened out under my weight? Now I have no feeling of being pushed forward.
Yes, I have found the same, but it's not gone completely. I've just been playing about and found that I can remove the plastic "high position" side panels under each side of the seat, but leave the front spacer in place. This leaves the front of the seat high, but the back in the low position. The lack of the side panels makes it look fugly, but I'm going to try this as a temporary test so see if it makes a difference. If so, I look into this option further and work out a way to tidy up the gaps.
Sorry to appear thick on this boys, but I can't see how this works. If your bottom alights towards the rear of the seat and you then slide forward, perhaps I can understand, but if that's the case why don't you alight your bottom to the front, then that way you can't slide forward or am I missing something ?
Cant say for the Ducati but with my Triumph Explorer I hammered it from day 1 I followed this info and reasoning Break In Secrets--How To Break In New Motorcycle and Car Engines For More Power Never did the Explorer any harm and it loosened up quite nicely
Thanks, but at this price-tag I'll stick with the manufacturer's recommendations over a sensationalist "secrets they don't want you to know!!!" article. There are far too many things wrong with the way he's presenting it all for me to put any faith in it, and too much self-contradiction. Also, what's his basis of authority? What's his methodology? Can I see the raw data, and try to replicate it to see if I get the same results? The people that actually make and design these things have a pretty good idea of how the materials react to various conditions over time, and as to why they designed things like cylinder linings in a particular way. I have enough faith in their cluefulness to pay them a large amount of money to make a toy that can kill me pretty spectacularly if they screwed up, and this depends on them knowing how all these moving parts interact and change - why would I expect them to have a blind-spot when it comes to running in?
Oops, my bad. In my defense, I've been various kinds of sysadmin and network admin for a decade and a half; it kinda leaves its mark in a person's psyche.
Maybe you didn't load it hard enough the first couple of times you parked the bike Why am I also having trouble with the mounts for my panniers? Clearly, they've done a far from perfect job with some aspects of the bike. Were these parts designed by the same team that did the engine? I don't know, but it seems unlikely. That still doesn't convince me that this guy knows what he's talking about, though. Even if somebody persuades me that all the engine-builders who advocate the user-manual break-in approach are wrong, you have a separate job of convincing me that this guy isn't equally wrong.
TBH most people have different views on breaking in, none are really right until something goes wrong, but that can happen to a manufactured recommended break in, to a rag the hell out of it breaking it in. The other point is pretty well most people never really keep a break long enough to know what was right or wrong. I think the Manufacturer is on the safe Conservative side, but cannot see how that it will hurt long term, the Rag it from day one etc. will more likely long term cause problems and is over the top. Considering the Recommended Revs to break in is over 100 MPH in 6th, and the torque the bike has it is very easy generally on day to day riding to easily keep it with in that tolerance, most important is to not over load the engine in low revs in the lower gears 4/5/6th. etc. and especially not over load or rev high when cold. Common sense really On a side note, ask yourself this is! is it all those JEALOUS PEOPLE who never get the chance to run a bike in and try and sell these rag it stories hoping you will break it????? and running in a race engine for racing is entirely different for long term reliability.
All I was giving was a different viewpoint. I'm not in the game of convincing others. You do as you please my friend.
