Ducati 916
DUCATI 916
YEAR OF THE 900
THE NEXT STEP FORWARD
ALAN CATHCART
THE OLD LADY AT THE VILLAGE GAS PUMP NEAR Pesaro knew what the Ducati 916 was, all right. "It's magnificent!" she told me, "You're very lucky to have such a nice bike to ride on such a lovely day."
And so I was. I was loose on the roads of the Republic of San Marino, a few days before the bike's official launch, for a full day's real-world riding on the first road-registered production 916 to leave the Bologna factory. What I found was the most refined, responsive roadbike I've ever ridden.
Ducati design chief Massimo Tamburini was assigned
development of a successor to the 851/888 Superbike more than four years ago, and he’s been working on it ever since, except for a couple of gaps when the project was held up due to corporate politics. He’s had plenty of time to define the overall concept, refine its execution and pay minute attention to detail. Starting
with the 94 x 66mm, 916cc version of Ducati’s original World Superbike-winning eight-valve engine, Tamburini and his staff at Centro Recerche Cagiva-which is headquartered in San Marino-created a bike with a strong visual identity and improved dynamic qualities that can only be fully appreciated in real-world street use.
What we have here is a bike that delivers a claimed 115 horsepower at the crank at 9000 rpm; weighs 436 pounds with water/oil/battery but no fuel; carries its weight split 49.5/50.5 percent between the front and rear wheels; and has a wheelbase of 55.5 inches-about as short as you can manage with a 90-degree V-Twin-obtained by tilting the engine forward by 3 degrees compared to its position in the 851/888. This also allows a steeper steering-head angle, which is variable between 24 and 25 degrees via a conical insert. Trail varies between 3.7 and 3.9 inches, depending on the angle chosen.
These figures denote a compact package, but they don’t prepare you for how dramatically different the 916 is from any other Ducati V-Twin. The 916 seems so petite and compact when you’re sitting on it that it feels like a 600; the 888 feels like a truck by comparison. That impression is translated to reality when you ride the 916 on the street. Take a little thing like steering lock: The 9l6’s 28 degrees in either direction is enormous by sportbike standards, and makes the bike ridiculously easy to maneuver in garages and narrow driveways. Or take the way it effortlessly swings from side to side during a fast mountain descent. The only physical effort needed to make it change direction is a bit of extra body pressure here, a little more of a pull on the bars there. It seems improbable that a bike with such a relaxed riding style can corner so fast and so confidently. The bike flicks from side to side far more easily than the 888, which needs a much more physical riding approach in tight comers.
Given the small stature and svelte, aggressive appearance of the 916, it comes as a surprise that it’s so comfortable, even for a taller rider. The footrests, seat and bars are in ideal relation to each other to deliver a sporting yet spacious stance that didn’t become at all tiring in a 190-mile day. In spite of the slim profile and efficient aerodynamics-these allow the 916 a 4-mph top-speed advantage against an 888 fitted with the same engine package-there’s more than adequate protection for the rider, even at ultra-high speeds.
More important, the 916 was unbelievably steady at 155mph-plus around autostrada turns, even when it encountered tar strips or changes in the road surface while cranked well over at those speeds. The Showa suspension is extremely compliant, and reflects the huge amount of development and critical attention to detail both Tamburini’s team and Showa’s technicians have invested in making the 916 handle this well. The way the 43mm fork, adjustable for preload, compression and rebound, allows the front wheel to glide over road-surface irregularities is uncanny, and is especially remarkable for the fact that this is supposed to be a hard-edged Superbike-for-the-street.
Tamburini initially projected a twin-spar chassis for the 916, but this was discarded in favor of a chrome-moly spaceframe design, Ducati’s established trademark. The aim was to produce a stiffer, more compact chassis than that of the 888, with improved steering, a more rational layout, uprated suspension performance and better aerodynamics. The engine is of course an integral load-bearing part of the chassis, attached to it at three points. Unlike the 888, in which the swingarm pivots independently in the crankcases, one of these mounting points incorporates the swingarm, which is thus supported in the chassis as well as in the engine for extra stiffness.
The swingarm itself is radically different from previous Ducati practice. It’s a single-sided aluminum casting produced by Brembo to very high tolerance levels. Its design apparently provoked a royalty-seeking visit from the Honda/ELF patent lawyers when it was first revealed. They were sent away empty-handed after Cagiva Group management pointed out the questionable validity of the ELF swingarm patents.
There’s a penalty involved here, and it comes in the form of additional weight. Single-sided swingarms are heavier than two-sided ones. In this case the penalty is 3.3 pounds, all of it unsprung. But by careful attention to the rear-suspension design, Tamburini has prevented this becoming apparent on the road. The Showa rear suspension is amazingly supple and compliant for a Superbike-class motorcycle. The 916 shrugs off bumps and road shock even when cranked over, accelerating hard out of a turn. I was amazed at the sort of broken road surfaces you can ride over on the 916 without it making any appreciable difference either to ride quality, comfort or handling.
Brembo has been an equally important partner in developing the 916, responsible not only for the cast swingarm and the 3.50 front/5.50 rear wheels, but also for the brakes the company is best known for. The 12.6-inch front discs fitted to the 916 and the latest-type four-piston calipers are the best such components available outside the GP world, and give effortless, progressive stopping power at relatively light lever pressures.
Because your attention is drawn to the 9l6’s smooth, sexy bodywork, it’s easy to forget that behind that slinky styling beats the latest version of Ducati’s world-beating eightvalve V-Twin. Ducati boss Massimo Bordi and Ducati chief engineer Luigi Mengoli lengthened the stroke of the 888’s 94 x 64mm motor by 2mm. This bumped capacity closer to the lOOOcc Superbike limit for Twins, and it regained some of the midrange torque the company’s race engines were forced to give away as engineers narrowed the powerband and increased revs to keep pace with their Japanese rivals in the Superbike class.
The result is a bike that pulls like a locomotive from as low as 2200 rpm. At around 5500, there’s a real kick in the power delivery and the motor rockets toward the tengrand rev limiter. The gearchange is very precise and clean, with the ratios evenly spaced about 1000 rpm apart, except for fourth to fifth, which is quite close at about 600 rpm.
Meeting the demand for the 916 may prove to be Ducati’s biggest problem in the near future. This bike’s
development has been so methodical and painstaking that its excellence is immediately apparent. Unlike almost any Italian bike built for sale in the past, there are no rough edges to be addressed, no obvious improvements that could have been taken care of in development but which early customers will have to put up with until the company can get around to fixing them. Instead, the 916 abounds with evidence of care and thought, from major aspects like suspension and steering, to the host of minor details your eye focuses on as it sweeps this piece of mechanical art. But do yourself a favor. Go see for yourself. You don’t even need to ride the 916 to appreciate it-but you’ll admire it all the more if you do. And if you’re lucky enough to actually snag one of the 3000 916s Ducati intends to build this year, you have both good fortune and taste. But you’d better hurry. The 916’s U.S. price is expected to be about $15,500, and in Italy, speculators already are buying up confirmed orders to sell at a premium.
Six years after the first 851, Ducati has given us a machine that fulfills the promise of the company’s fabulous engine. The 916 is the finest streetbike I have ever ridden, from any manufacturer, in any country. The old lady near Pesaro was right. Anyone who manages to possess one of these motorcycles will be a very lucky person.
