Discuss :-

Cem

gah

[Edited by Ghostdog - 10/07/2003 15:08:35]

Call me a bit strange,but I actually prefer it to the 999,looks wise anyway.

Discuss?

They are nice - and seeing as you like to be flash they'd suit your image.... you could post nice pics of it on your web-site - and get lots of nice admiring comments from people "in the know" ;) ;) :D

You really need to get the R version - then you could trick it up on top of whats already a bit of a monster.. add nice bits of carbon etc. Would photo nicely next to the R34 an Mak..... :)

Only joking ;)

I don't fit on one - the most uncomfortable thing i've ever ridden - so if your tall and not a sado-masacist steer well clear.

Easily out paced by Jap superbikes in terms of raw speed - and not as reliable to boot. Expensive to maintain. If you like wheelies - its one of the best around but spews oil out of air box once you ming one up to 3rd gear. Slow steering IMHO. Can be a bit of a handful to an untrained rider.... like me :D Harsh suspension for british roads. If it gets bumpy go home and ask your misses to keep hitting you with a baseball bat in the @rse - you'll get the same sensations :D

BUT...

Possibly the single most desirable sports bike EVER IMHO. Looks amazing - sounds awesome on the race pipes (and ecu update) - corners like its on rails - and the thump from the twin is amazing out of corners. Loads more comfortable once up to speed when the small screen helps as the air pressure lifts your knackered wrists off the bars. Track day king if you like to be smooth. You won't notice the pain from the riding position on the track. Knee downs easy - confidence in the bike on its edge is wicked. Race heritage means they keep their value better than the jap alternatives. Kudos of owning one.

Would i have one - hell no. Does my heart want one - hell yes!

Jza

[Edited by Jza - 10/07/2003 15:25:10]

Thanks JZA ;)

Very good post, loads of insight.

Cem

Hmm - Dukes. There seems to be two camps. Absolute fans and anti-fans. I personally don't like them (other than they have nice looking exhausts and sound great with loud cans on them :D:D). Like Jza said, they are very un-compromising and only good at one thing - going fast. If you try and go slow I think they are quite un-pleasant to ride so you need to decide if you want an all round bike, something for transport as well as fun, or a toy to go scratching in the country (you do ;):):D).

I also don't think I'd recommend one as a 1st bike due to the fact that they are not the easiest bikes to ride, and it's almost a certainty that you will drop your first bike, often many times. It's for this reason that I would recommend something a little more rugged for the 1st year at least. Something like a Fazer 600. Bear in mind that anything with a fairing is going to cost quite a bit to repair if it gets dropped/crashed and to be honest, any modern 600 is going to be fast enough to start with (Queue Tiggs and his "you don't have to open the throttle all the way, get an R1" ;);):D:D).

Duke's also have a reputation as being very un-reliable (though I *think* they are getting better). Everybody I know that has had one has got so fed up with it that they have sold it. It seems to have been a love hate relationship. They love the bike but they hate it breaking down all the time. A couple of years back, a friend of mine knew 5 guys who went to Spa on their brand new (less than 1 year old) 998s and only 2 made it back under their own steam :(:eek::rolleyes:

Like I said, I *think* they have got better but I haven't seen the evidence of this. Like I said, I don't like them as I'm a straight 4 (peferably Japanese) man and IMHO, you get a lot more for your money with a Japanese Sports bike - sure they have less soul but they are arguably the best all round packages out there for very reasonable money.

Anything else you want to know, you know where I am.....

Matt :)

I certainly am not considering this for a first bike, but will definately be buying one for maybe a second ;) I'm totally besotted with it, my opinion the best looking bike out there.
Was there not someone on the forum who owned one? I'd be interesting to hear of what it's like to live with one.

Cem

I've read the comments and I agree and disagree with all of them...

I used to ride 4 cylinder bikes (Japanese), and to be honest they're fantastic, but until you spend a few hours riding a Duke, you just don't realise how much better they are... don't ask me how or why, it's just there...

I have loads of friends who used to ride R1's, Gixxer Thou's etc, and they bought Dukes (998 Bayliss/Bostrom Reps) and loved them, but couldn't warrant the cost.... so they sold them... and bought 2003 R1's for track days, and KTM etc supermoto's for the road, the R1's lasted all of 3 months before they sold them, to go and buy 2 new Ducati's.... if that's not telling me or anyone else something I don't know what is...

As far as owning one goes, well it isn't cheap, servicing, maintenance is a constant drain on my pocket, but as we're all on a Scooby site here, guessing lots of you have Scoobies, then you already know about costs...

They're not great to ride around town, as the clutch is so heavy, and the gearing isn't great for 30-40 mph, but a quick sprocket change sorted that out on my 996, and yes the riding position can become painful on long journeys, your wrists will ache like hell in no time, but I'm over 6ft tall, and after a few rides you get used to it... honestly.

As far as reliability goes, I haven't had any major mechanical troubles, the one's I have had, had possibly been my fault anyway, but they're not like Jap bikes, where you can abuse them, and never clean them etc, I spend a good hour or so after every ride cleaning, checking, lubing my bike, but that's habit, which originally stemmed from my ZX6 days, plus my theory is if I'm doing that, hopefully I'll spot any problems before they become huge, expensive ones...

Personally I'm not a great fan of the 999, I took one out for s spin, and didn't rate it that much, this left me in a real quandry where to go from my 996???? I jumped on one of the guys R1's and really liked it, but it just didn't feel right, so I ended up getting a 998 Bostrom Rep, 54mm Termig system, new ECU, carbon everything etc, wavy discs... you name it... it's claimed 141HP at the crank, but this thing flies, I can't believe how different the new Testretta engine is, and how much more power, and grunt it has, it's crazy !

As far as not being as quick as Gixxer Thou's or R1's, well I can tell you otherwise, on a recent track day, following my mate on his £13K Gixxer Thou, I was on his rear wheel all round Oulton Park, only on the long straights did he start to creep away, and I mean creep, a quick sprocket change would of probably been the only thing needed to get by him, saying that I had him on the brakes no problem, and that's another BIG thing, the new 4 pad calipers are amazing, they blow the old 996 calipers out of the water.

As far as a first bike, no way, I doubt you'd get insurance, plus they're not as forgiving as some (CBR600 etc), and if you dumped it, you'd probably die at the cost of repairs... £700 per side panel, £250 headlamp, £900 swingarm, £700 rear wheel spindle... as a few costly examples...

HTH

Hi,

No, as I said, certainly not a first bike - I may have a lot of track experience (in a car) etc. but I'm not silly enough to jump on 9k bike straight away. I WILL own one very soon though.

Also, I'm totally used to driving in a no compromise enviroment. My car has hard suspension (no fillings left), is very low (scrapes all the time) and is uncomfortable on long journeys. From that perspective, I'm totally prepared to accept certain compromises. The stiff clutch and the knackered wrists are the most common things I hear. Exactly how bad is this?

Cem.

p.s. anyone in London care to show me their 998? ;)

Considering selling my 748 if anybodys interested.2002 748R in Yellow
1800 miles from new (1 owner, me)
full R spec (termi's, ohlins damper, coloured mirrors etc).
Brought from Forza Italia.
Extras include Carbon Hugger, Datatool Series 3 Alarm and a Bip Subframe and Dual seat Unit.
As new condition.

Sensible offers around £8k
Will sell for £7.5k without Bip subframe and seat unit.

Darren

http://ducatisportingclub.com/control/boards/viewthread.php?action=attachment&tid=1688&pid=12368

Blow Dog, at first you'll hate everythign about it, urban speeds, the clutch, wrist pain, but again you soon get used to it...

The clutch isn't too much of a problem, I never use the clutch on the way up the box, only on downshifts, so there's the clutches use halved straight away, it's only around towns, etc, where you're constantly up and down, worst case scenario, you have to fork out roughly £100 for a 3rd party clutch slave cylinder, which they claim reduces force by around 30%.

The wrist bit again is a real pain, you'll end up with really, REALLY sore wrists the first say half a dozen rides, after that you "adapt" to it, and you'll hardly notice it, only on long journeys etc. Saying that the tank on a duke is only good for about 130 miles, so you're going to have to get off and fill up every hour or two. Again in a worst case scenario you can replace the clip-ons with Heli-Bars which alter the angle etc of the bars, so their not as steep etc, but from what I gather you can catch your thumbs on full lock on the airtubes. All of your upper body is over the front end, so consequently all that weight is supported by your wrists.

You do get used to it, I have, but it's the first few rides of the year, after the winter break where my wrists ache like hell, and the worst bit is, because it's my first time out on the bike for say 3-4 months you want to ride as long as possible, so you end up really putting your wrists through hell, but the grin on my face makes up for it a million times over.

By the way - the 999 is a lot more comfortable!

Jza

But not as nice looking IMHO...

Am I right in saying the 999 is more of a cruiser than the 998?

Cem

Heck no !!!

It's the replacement for the 9*6/998 range...

But is...

a) Ugly
b) A weird thing to ride.... If you ever get to ride one, you feel perched on top of the thing, not part of it, it's "slightly" more relaxed.

As far as power/speed it's every bit as fast and nimble as a 998, but just not as nice, and the rumour mill has told me that sales haven't hit the targets, and Ducati are contemplating remodelling the front (similar to the bug eyed Scoob), funnily enough they recently announced a final edition of the 998, no doubt at a huge premium, to maybe try and recoup some of the lost revenue...

Ahhh - so the 998 is the outgoing model?

Cem

Maybe I should rephrase that...

The 998 is no longer produced, but the 999 is a new model

Similar to the ford escort, it is no more, but here's the new focus

That's what I meant.
That's the first time I've seen something like that happen where a previous model is SO much more blatantly attractive than the new one.

Cem

yep - but it was basically a 10 year old design and the styling on the newer jap and other italian bikes was moving on. They had to change it, and the new look is pretty radical.

IIRC, all the winter tests of the 999 vs 998 by the bike mags were talking about how much faster the 999 was, and how much easier it was to ride (fast) than the 998. They all expressed surprise at how much better they thought it was.

Having said that, you know what bike journos are like, they go on about how much better the new model year is, year on year when in reality, only bike racers probably have the talent to exploit the differences between the two!!!

The thing you will find about most modern sports bike is Cem, they are all immensely capable and extremely fast and it will probably be many years before you can ride one remotely anywhere near it's limits.

It sure is fun learning though!!! :D:D:D:D

Matt :)

The thing you will find about most modern sports bike is Cem, they are all immensely capable and extremely fast and it will probably be many years before you can ride one remotely anywhere near it's limits.
Absolutely - same applies to all forms of journalism. I'm not planning on becoming the next WSB champion so I'm sure I will enjoy either.

Cem