Backroad Ramblings

While meandering through my stack of monthly motorcycle magazines, I stumbled upon a 1000cc shootout that stopped me in my proverbial tracks. Among the entrants compared were the usual lot of Japanese masterpieces, the Honda CBR1000RR, Suzuki GSX-R1000, the Yamaha YFZ-R1, and the Kawasaki ZX-10R. It was the remaining two entrants that prevented me, momentarily, from wandering over to the cupboard for a fistful of Cheez-Its. The Ducati 999S and the MV Agusta F4 1000 S had made the grade of being worthy opponents of the Big Four in this particular shootout, but it's their results that I found a bit disturbing.

Riders with even so much as a hint of racing heritage in their veins can't help but get a little googly eyed over the blood red paint scheme and flowing lines of the Ducati. I mean, after all this is an Italian bike that oozes with the same kind of romantic appeal that has made Ferrari so desirable throughout the ages. Comparatively, the price tag of the Ducati is nearly double that of the R1, which would lead one to believe that perhaps the performance, too then, would be double. Hardly.

While the Yamaha was quoted as putting out 149.9 horsepower and hitting a top speed of 181, the Duc rated 130.8 horses and a top speed of 165. Of course, the Ducati is a V-Twin rather than an inline-Four of its Japanese rivals, and likewise one would expect the bike to be lighter as a result. Wrong again, the R1 weighed in at 423 pounds while the 999 tipped the scales at 434 pounds.

The hard data didn't exactly paint a pretty picture for the Ducati, at least not nearly as well as the photograph of the bike leaning impossibly inward around a tight switch-back did. The report, whether intentional or not, got me thinking about exactly how much (or how little) emphasis we place on hard numbers and performance data in selecting a new model to purchase (or even just to fantasize about).