I posted this on another forum and got some very interesting responses. Id like to hear what you guys have to say. Im parting ways with my 998 and I want to get another super bike. My plan is to use it mostly for road riding but also the occasional track days. I have been riding for a few years now and I have done only one track day. Basically, I want to improve my skills and I think the torque of the 998 bails me out of my sloppy cornering. This brings me to the 749. I am not put off by the styling. In fact, I think the 749/999 looks amazing in person. So my question for all of you who are familiar with the riding characteristics of the 749 is this: what are the riding characteristics? The other bike that Im seriously considering is a 900ss sp. I know it is a very different bike than the 749 but I think it would also help me improve my riding ability. The biggest downside to the 900ss for me is the inevitable repairs. Im accustomed to doing all the work on my bikes, but I enjoy riding them a lot more than fixing them. One caveat- I know that one school of thought would be to buy a small cc Japanese bike and learn on it. This is an excellent idea, but I want a Ducati.
In 2015 I had a 916SPS bitsa, a 749R and a 1098R. I did a fairly coarse comparison of the ergonomics of each bike and measured distance and angles between: Seat and handlebar grips Seat and footpegs Footpegs and handlebar grips I was most surprised to find that the distance/angles were pretty much the same between all three. So, ergonomics are likely to be very similar between 998 and 749. I would say they handled pretty much the same, once I had set the suspension sag etc and tuned the settings to suit me. Back to the 749 question - mine is an R with a super sport kit on it. Engine wise, I love it. It’s like a two stroke, nothing til 7krpm then it takes off. Since it’s a track only bike, this is great as it rarely goes below 7k anyway. Weight wise I would say the 749 is lighter as it’s also got no road kit on it. Brakes would also be similar and could be improved with pad change, master cylinder and disc upgrades. So, if your cornering is “sloppy” on a 998, it’s likely going to be similar on a 749….
Thats a very helpful response Ricky. With the 998, I guess my cornering can sometimes be lazy because I know its got so much torque to rescue my mediocre corner speed. The 749 obviously doesn't have quite as much torque, so I am hoping that it would force me to concentrate more on corner entry and maintaining corner speed throughout the corner.
