Ducati 1098
DUCATI 1098
CW FIRST RIDE
Sizzlin' seduction in South Africa
DON CANET
I WAS GOING ON 48 HOURS WITHOUT MUCH SLEEP when I slipped into my riding gear, yet felt surprisingly rejuvenated and ready to ride. Having remained awake throughout a full day of air travel from Los Angeles to Johannesburg, South Africa,
I landed smack dab in a double clutch of jet lag fueled by the anticipation of riding one of the most visually seductive Italian sportbikes I’ve ever laid eyes on.
May the person responsible for parking that Ducati 1098 on a pedestal in the hotel lobby be stricken with insomnia. It was a very long night, even though sunrise came at 5 a.m. __
Following a blurry-eyed breakfast, I, along with a load of other moto-journalists, hopped a bus to the nearby Kyalami Circuit where our Italian hosts staged a grand entrance with corporate colors flying high on every flagpole and countless Ducati banners strung throughout the paddock and along the main straight. A block of pit garages had undergone the royal makeover for this multi-wave world press launch of the new 1098. Red carpet led through a garage doorway decked in a fancy facade featuring a larger-than-life image of reigning World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss aboard the 1098. Slick!
Once inside, we passed through a garage bay cleanly converted into an impromptu movie theater for conducting the technical presentation. Several adjoined pit stalls formed a large room housing 20 bright red 1098s arranged in orderly fashion upon checkerboard carpet. Suffice it to say, this stunning example of high-octane Italian flair, combined with the performance promise of the delicious 1099cc V-Twin, proved every bit as potent a stimulant as a double shot of Milano espresso!
Far from a mid-life update, the 1098 represents a thorough ground-up redesign of the 999, a bike that had nothing left to prove at the highest level of Superbike competition but wasn’t a champion of streetbike sales. When asked of the drastic redesign, the answer straight from Claudio Domenicali, chief of Ducati’s racing program and the product director overseeing streetbike development, was plain and simple. It comes down to offering the best racetrack performance of any “stock” literclass machine on the market. Ducati believes a dominant showing in magazine comparison tests will translate into increased sales.
Following the tech presentation, we suited up and took to the track for our first of five 15-minute sessions-four aboard the standard 1098 and a single stint on a higher-performing 1098 S model. Settling into the saddle of my assigned bike parked on pit lane, I immediately found the riding position much more to my liking than that of its predecessor. Raising the seat .4 inch along with a .2-inch reduction in footpeg height has increased legroom. The bars are .8 inch higher and have been moved .3 inch closer to the saddle and now fan out at a flatter angle, effectively widening hand placement for increased steering leverage. The saddle itself is wider at the front but has rounded sides, easing the reach to the ground at stops.
While chassis dimensions are nearly identical to those of the 999, the new bike delivers a sensation of being notably more compact. I’d attribute this mainly to the redesigned cockpit pulling the dash and windscreen back closer to the rider. The new all-digital dash is also located much lower, yielding an unobstructed forward view that allows the bike to vanish beneath you when your focus is trained on
the road ahead.
This was my first visit to Kyalami, a spectacular 2.7-mile, 13-turn circuit that hasn’t been a popular destination for manufacturers looking to showcase their latest machines due to its lofty location more than 5000 feet above sea level.
While mile-high-thin air may be conducive to boosting the stats of a Broncos' placekicker, by Ducati's estimate, the 1098 I rode at Kyalami suffered a 17-percent performance loss compared to what we can look for-
ward to experiencing back home along Pacific Coast Highway.
Coming to grips with the track's blind crests and decreasing-radius corners presented no particular difficulty as I'd brushed up beforehand and learned the layout playing a racing sim on my X Box. Getting used to the bike's power and handling was easier still due to its smooth delivery and solid stability, both of which built on a foundation of confi dence I gained from the very first lap. No question, altitude was certainly reining back the claimed 160 wild horses, tak ing the edge off acceleration out of even the tightest corners. Throttle response, however, remained crisp and the engine pulled very cleanly at all times. This predictable delivery, minimal driveline lash and the inherent tractability of the 90-degree Twin allowed very early drives from full lean in the heart of the corner.
The stock-fitment Pirelli Diablo Corsa Pro rear tire in a new 190/55-17 size that is making its debut on the 1098 provided excellent grip without signs of excessive wear.
I've never been a proponent of LCD bar-graph tachom eters, finding a traditional analog needle more intuitive to read at a glance. Given time, I'd likely adapt to the bar tach on the 1098's MotoGP-derived dash, but the rather small numbers on its rev scale made it difficult to discern mdi-
cated engine rpm when sneaking a quick peek mid-corner. It appeared the engine pulled well from about 6000 rpm, making for a very generous spread of power that allowed
a choice of two gears when exiting most I corners.
Ducati has vastly improved the shiftlight function, which on the previous-gen eration bike illuminated a scant moment before the rev limiter abruptly cut in. Now a four-light array located above what would be the tach's red zone illuminates sequentially from 9800 rpm, providing the rider fair warning with ample time to react before the engine cuts out at 10,700 rpm. While the pre-production bike I rode featured the same old harsh rev lim iter, Domenicali told me a softer scheme involved a simple software adjustment and was already on the to-do list.
If you like your front binders big, you're going to love the 1098's 330mm Brembo rotors. Reducing the number of attachment buttons securing the rotor to the carrier has maintained the same weight as last year's 320mm rotors even though the new discs are .5mm thicker. The 1098 is the first road
bike to utilize Brembo's racing-derived monobloc caliper, a single-piece casting featuring four pistons, three bridges and two pads that result in increased caliper stiffi~ess, a 12 per cent greater friction-material surface and 11 percent greater stopping power at high speed. Getting acclimated to the brakes' immense power and aggressive initial bite is the one aspect of riding this machine that I found required serious attention. But as the laps accumulated, I came to appreciate the low effort required at the lever, as well as less forearm fatigue thanks to the slight increase in bar height.
For additional photography of the Ducati 1098 visit www.cycleworld.com
Agility is another area Domenicali’s team has tackled at the ankles through a substantial rear-wheel weight savings that’s resulted in a 21 percent reduction in rotational inertia. Excess bulk has been machined from the same cast-aluminum front wheel as used on the 999, yielding a 7 percent reduction of inertial force up front, as well. The bike’s improved nimbleness was most apparent when working through a top-of-fourth-gear right-to-left transition at the end of the main straight. On the backside of the course, rollercoaster esses taken in third gear demanded a full-tilt side-to-side flick that was achieved with relative ease. My only head-shaking encounter of the day came when I passed a slower rider on the outside and ventured off line through a patch of sharp bumps. The cross-mounted steering damper performed its duty and kept the ensuing bar shake from becoming a full-on tank slapper.
Kyalami’s paved surface felt pretty smooth, at least until my afternoon stint on the Öhlins-equipped S model. Suddenly I was feeling feedback through the chassis that the Showa legs of the standard 1098 had masked. The S was set up for a more aggressive pace and needed to be ridden as such to be appreciated. Run at the same clip I’d been doing resulted in a less-settled feeling. Equipped with a Termignoni race exhaust and a recalibrated fuel map, the S allegedly produced 10 more horsepower than the bike I’d been riding, offering a taste, if not all, of the performance potential the standard 1098 should deliver at lower elevation.
With its sultry exhaust note still ringing in my ears and luscious ruby-red form fresh in my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking that the Ducati 1098 is truly the stuff of dreams. Even as I dozed off at 38,000 feet during that long flight back to the States. □
