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Oh my god.... For comedy's sake, I hope this is genuine. For the sake of the future of the human race, I hope to christ it isn't. Especially the German kid right near the end. (yes I know the subtitles aren't genuine, I'm talking about the behaviour)
Motorcycles that is. In a rare opportunity, I got to test four European nakedbikes today, three Italian, one Austrian. Here's what I thought of them, in the order in which I rode them.
Price: $21k on-road Oh baby. The Austrian-made KTM Superduke is the King Dick in the sports-naked category. Combine an ultra-stiff yet stable chassis with an absolute bloody brute of an engine, and you're left with a machine that could eat most fully-faired sportsbikes for lunch. I was surprised by how stiff the suspenders were. I felt almost no sag when I sat on it. I'm heavier than a lot of riders, so I'm not sure how someone with a slight build would find it, but for me it was perfect. It seems to glide through corners and despite the stiffness, didn't seem very harsh over bumpy tarmac. KTM really did their homework with the compression and rebound damping. The ergonomics are near-perfect. The seat is supportive, the placement of the bars and switchgear is spot-on, as is the height of the footpegs. It feels like you're almost sitting on top of the front wheel, and with the wide bars, this gives a terrific feeling of control and confidence. It's the engine that really steals the show: it's simply stunning. Massive waves of power and torque almost anywhere in the rev range, giving some awesome, cheek-sucking acceleration. It's a stunningly smooth engine for a big-bore v-twin as well, though as with all such engines, it can provide a jerky ride around town as the engine responds instantly to even the smallest movement of the wrist. This may actually be the quickest-accelerating bike I've ridden. I've no actual data on that, but the seats-of-the-pants feel certainly gave that impression. One thing is for sure, the Superduke would leave my beloved z1000 in the dust in a drag race. The top-end power might not be much different, but the difference in torque is huge. My ohlins-shod bike still out-handles the superduke though, and it's easier to ride, but when it comes to sheer, exhilarating performance, the Superduke is absolutely without peer in the nakedbike class. Negatives? I've heard the handling goes to pieces once the tyres get worn (though how this is different from other bikes I'm not exactly sure), the spans of the clutch and brake levers are far too big, and adjusting them seemed to make little difference. It is kinda tiring to ride, and it drinks fuel like a Monaro, so it probably isn't a great tourer. Your passenger won't be too impressed with the accommodations either. But the superduke wasn't built for any of that. It's a supermoto bike on steroids, and in that regard, it succeeds beautifully. Here's a Japanese video about the bike with some good visuals.
Price: $22k on-road I test-rode the previous model back in 2004. It's a very different looking beast now, and the latest version left me with a very different impression. Ridden on its own, I probably would have had a similar opinion to when I rode it back in '04. But riding it 10 minutes after the Superduke, it suffered badly in comparison. The ergonomics seem a little off. Handlebar position is OK but the pegs are stupidly high, and the seat felt strange. You just don't feel a part of the bike like you do with the KTM. The engine has plenty of stomp, but seems rough compared to the KTM, and the bloody shift-light keeps coming on at 5000 revs. Handling seems ok, and the brakes are good, but I just didn't feel confident on it. It's like they stopped development of the bike when the last 10% still needed refinement. There were some small things which pissed me off. The goddamned switchgear is still horrible: the positions of the horn and indicator switches are reversed from their usual configuration, so you end up blowing the horn when you want to indicate. There's no reason for this arrangement other than being a typical example of pointless bloody mindedness from Italian designers. Having said that, some of the other folks who tested it loved it. It's still got a stonking engine, and I love the new styling (it looks much better in the flesh). Having said that, I got off the KTM wanting more time on it. With the Tuono, it was a case of "see you around".
Price: $18k on-road This was the pleasant surprise of the day. I wasn't expecting much from this outdated quasi-sports bike with its soggy suspension and wheezy two-valve engine, but I had a blast on it. A couple of years ago I reviewed the Buell XB9R, and came to the unusual conclusion that while in many ways it was a dreadfully designed motorbike, it still ended up being a whole lotta fun. That's exactly the way I feel about this Ducati. The first thing you notice about the Monster is the odd ride position. It's a nakedbike, so you expect to be sitting upright, but in fact you're in an odd semi-crouch. You sink into the soft seat, and the pegs are mounted quite high, and you have to stretch a bit to grab the bars. Sort of a "half-sports" riding position. It isn't uncomfortable... quite the opposite in fact. Combined with the comfy seat and the effective headlight fairing, it makes for a great, (if somewhat strange) ride position. The engine is a very different beast from the two bikes mentioned above. The two-valve air-cooled v-twin feels nice at the throttle, but completely runs out of steam just over 5000rpm. Short-shifting is the order of the day here. A horsepower monster this bike isn't. What is does have, is nice, useable torque at low RPM, which unlike the KTM and the Tuono, doesn't act like a light switch at the smallest movement of the throttle. It's a very forgiving bike. The slushy suspension and east throttle make it the easiest bike of this bunch to ride, and it's by far the most comfortable bike for both around-town duties. Horsepower talk is relative anyway: it might be left behind my the KTM and the like, but it's still more than quick enough to have some real fun with. ...and here comes one of the best features of the bike: it sounds beautiful. Even thought the Monster, like all these bikes, was equipped with those horrible EU-regulated stock exhaust, you could still hear the gorgeous, deep boom from the v-twin powerplant. Put a pair of aftermarket pipes on this bike, and the noise will be pure music. Some aftermarket suspension work would be welcome too, and the handling really does go to jelly in fast, bumpy corners. Nothing too scary, just plenty of cues from the bike to slow the hell down or buy yourself an Ohlins shock. Still, this bike was a hoot, and I'd gladly take one with me for a ride around the NSW coast. It's overpriced, outpaced and wouldn't be comfortable for a passenger.... but it's still a bloody nice bike.
Price: $19k on-road For the life of me, I cannot imagine there would be a single person on the planet who would want to pay so much money for this stupendously boring, half-baked motorcycle. One of the three Ducati "classic" (retro) models, the GT1000 fails on every front. Take all the good points away from the S2R (which shares the same engine), keep all the bad ones, and you've got yourself the GT. ...and it's so bloody bland to look at. I'm not talking ugly, just completely forgettable. It's like a GS500 with a Ducati sticker. As a matter of fact, that's this bike in a nutshell: an uncomfortable GS500. Except the GS500 will cost you half as much. Love the Ducati blurb:
*snort*.....Surrrrre. That explains the non-adjustable suspension, the plank of a seat, the crap tyres and a wheezy engine. If the S2R showed its limits on bumpy tarmac, the GT is simply horrendous: an unbelievably harsh, tooth-rattling ride and a dangerous amount of handlebar movement. Maybe Ducati decided to leave suspension duties to the rider's body instead of using actual springs and forks. Good points? Err....um..... the mirrors work well, and the throttle is light. And I was able to get off it after 15 minutes. Bikes like this are why I always laugh at idiots who blither about "Italian passion" in regards to motorbikes. The GT1000 has all the "passion" of boiled cabbage. And they're charging nearly twenty grand for this motorised turd. Fuck off.
Remarkable video of a birdstrike on a 757 at takeoff.
Screw Tetris, this is the shit.
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