Ducati’s baby superbike has always been an overlooked beauty. Visually identical to its bigger brother the supersport spec Duke was often perceived as the runt of the litter by riders blinded by the thought that bigger is better. Which wasn’t necessarily true. Get a 748, or later the 749, spinning and the motor reveals itself as a rev-happy monster, more than prepared to receive the thrashing of a lifetime and return the favour by providing a thrilling and immensely satisfying ride. So, fairly reasonably, I assumed that the 848 would follow a similar vein, just with a bit more grunt. This isn’t the case.
At the press briefing (think the brainwashing scene in Clockwork Orange but without the eye clamps) the Ducati men started uttering phrases such as ‘best balance between road and track’ and ‘entry level superbike.’ Hmm, this didn’t sound like what I was expecting. I wanted to hear lightweight, rev-hungry, supersport, phrases that would hint at a bike you could really throw around (or up) a track.
A bit more waffle and some figures were uttered. The 848 is, according to Ducati, 20kg lighter and has 26bhp more than the 749. Ah, that sounds better, 134bhp in a bike weighing 168kg, now we are talking, that’s only 26bhp less than the 1098 and it weighs 5kg less. I apologise for that sudden burst of numbers, I don’t know what came over me.
Anyway, to recap, the 848 is lighter, more powerful and a damn sight better looking than the 749, so why isn’t Ducati shouting about it being a lightweight track missile? Simple, the 848 has been designed to be an easy to ride superbike as a counter to the rather aggressive 1098. Think of the pair as a classic good cop/bad cop combo.
At this point Ducati 749 purists might be starting to feel a bit put off. But don’t be, the 848 is still a fantastic bike, just in a slightly different way. Ducati chose to launch the 848 at Spain’s Almeria circuit, a favourite spot for BSB teams when it comes to testing because it’s tight, twisty and has a mega long back straight. I’ve been there a few times before with the magazine so I was lucky enough to kind of know my way around, a bonus because Ducati only gave us four 15-minute sessions.
First session out and after a fairly gentle warm-up lap I started to build the pace up, which resulted in me running over more inner corner paint than a myopic kerb crawler. Honestly, after about five laps I decided it was about time to hang up the leathers and start a new life as an illegal taxi, my riding was that bad. Every corner resulted in me peeling in, picking the bike up, then fifty pencing my way around. Pathetic. Slightly concerned that I had lost my (small helping) of biking mojo I was fairly relieved when the flag came out signalling the end of the session.
After a thorough talking to (and a quick slug of coffee to shake the remaining sleep out of my system) it was time to venture out again. Head down, concentrating like I probably should have been in the first session, and things clicked. Bloody hell this bike is good. The reason I had been such a shambles before was clear – I wasn’t going fast enough.
Ducatis always have the reputation as being fairly slow-steering bikes, which is true for the 9-derivative machines, but not so for the 848. This thing is light, agile and although not as fast as a Japanese sports 600 turns much faster than any other Ducati I’ve ridden. My slightly sleep-deprived brain had slipped into Ducati riding mode in the first session and I was instinctively turning it harder, causing the erratic lines as I over-steered. Up the pace and this amount of effort is correct, at slower speeds it’s over kill.
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