@comfysofa have you got a Z1000? You should have said. It always surprises me when people say the Superduke R is expensive. The list price is £1500 less than a 1200R Monster, which is a fine bike, but the Superduke will blow it away in every department. Yet people never say the Monster is expensive. And no one in the know ever pays list price for a cash-bought KTM. There are always deals to be done. No so easy with Ducati. Could that possibly be why in 2017 KTM worldwide sold five times as many bikes as Ducati..?
Won’t sell. Like they didn’t first time round. What’s the difference of RSV4 and Tuono, 3k? Then discounts....Ducati will be £1500 no discounts. Probably
Yep, it was all down to price last time and will be this time. They will price themselves out of sales imo.
Well, that goes back to my initial statement....spend 20k on a bike and there's no doubt its going to be a garage queen...hey - if i spent 20k on a bike id be the same!. I am to a certain extent with what i acutally own, but, the balance is, is that they all get used and abused....digressing a little (on the ducati forum...no way!) if i plough a bit of cash in to getting the finish sorted out the sliding scale starts to move a little as i have to care a bit less about looking after them (as theyre quite a bit more durable) and more actually using the thing for what it was intended for...yet they still look good and dont weather anywhere near as fast...
I think the reason it didnt sell the first time round is that, biking is getting to be a niche market in that by manufacturers getting greedier and greedier, insurance getting higher, me Gimlet and Wayne58 were at Loomies the other day, carpark packed out....randomly casting my eye around the people milling around the car park i would say more than 95% were middle aged. Jump back 25 years ago - im remembering being at Chelsea Bridge with my mates and the core age was 17 to 25/30. Most of the people that are riding naked's are 40+'s thats just my opinion though...just what i see....going back 10 years ago when the streetfighter came out id say the core age was a bit younger and they all wanted racers...all those "lads" now are getting older and going for nakeds....me included - rsv4 of mine...least used by a county mile...most used....the zed, followed by the hyper...
Completely agree. I’m 31 and the majority of my biking mates are between 40 and 60. I know the cafe racer scene is big with the kids but that’s not my bag..
Completely agree. I’m 31 and the majority of my biking mates are between 40 and 60. I know the cafe racer/retro scene is big with the kids but that’s not my bag..
Yep - one of my mates has hopped on that bandwagon....id say for me even at almost 50 naked's and supermoto's is where its at....if Ducati had pressed on the streetfighter is would be an established part of the brand by now and it turn with the almost fanatical following ducati has as a brand...even more so...
I’m going to EICMA this year, if anyone wants to give me their deposit dosh I’ll take it with me. Promise not to spend it on anything else.
Buying the bike is the easy bit. With PCP it's never been easier to own a new bike, far easier than it was when I was in my twenties (whether that's a good way of buying is another matter...). The killer for anyone under thirty these days is insurance. Late twenty-somethings have it worst of all: they're old enough to have households of their own with all the bills, often kids as well, but professionally they're not seniors yet with the salaries that go with that and they probably won't live in the most insurance-friendly addresses, which added to their age means they get hammered. When I was that age, for most of us it was ten year old bikes at least and a lot of make do and mend. A few of my age group had new bikes but they were very rarely top-end and never premium brands, if there was such a thing apart from Bimota. Comfort and sophistication was usually dearer than performance so the big sports tourers were for the old farts and the youngsters bought the sports bikes. What younger riders need now is what they needed then: affordable performance, bang for your buck. That's why budget performers like Yamaha's MT range that don't milk the extras game sell in such numbers. If the bike can be financed with money to spare at least there's a chance of meeting the running costs. If it takes everything you've got just to buy the bike and you can't get it on the road, there's no point. Add to that things like £1000 service bills and £100/hour workshop charges that Ducati specialise in and it's no wonder it's become an old man's brand.
