Ducati Desmosedici RR
If any modern superbike demands that all performance-hungry motorcyclists should stand up and salute as it roars by, it’s Ducati’s extraordinary V4 missile the Desmosedici RR. Not that you’re ever likely to see one of these stunningly exotic MotoGP replicas in the local high street any time soon, even if the Bologna firm has increased the hand-built production run to over 1000, to meet undreampt-of demand for a bike costing more than £40,000.
Such a price might normally seem ludicrous even for the finest of production bikes, but not for the Desmo Sixteen. Ducati’s audaciously conceived and brilliantly realised 989cc, 16-valve V4 is improbably similar to the mighty works Desmosedici on which Troy Bayliss won the final race of MotoGP’s 990cc era two years ago; and which was regularly the fastest of all the factory weapons in a straight line.
Perhaps the statistic that best sums-up the Desmosedici RR is not its 200bhp power output with included loud Termis fitted, its near-200mph top speed or its long list of race-quality components, but the fact that its painstakingly designed and constructed chrome-moly tubular steel frame is both lighter and 80 per cent more torsionally stiff than the 1098’s equivalent. Compared to Ducati’s majestic MotoGP-replica tool, everything else on two wheels is, frankly, just a bit soft.
Click here to read Ducati Desmosedici owner reviews.
