A COMFY WAY TO SNAP YOUR NECK
I’ve had two scary but satisfying moments this week. One was opening my bank statement to find I wasn’t as overdrawn as I had feared. And the other was riding the Ducati Panigale V4.
If ever the cliche of something looking fast even when it’s standing still applied to anything, it’s this bike – a beast of dangerous beauty even as you approach it.
On board, the seating position is tilted forward ready to race, although it’s surprisingly comfortable for such a superbike – not too much weight on the reasonably high and wide bars even at a standstill, and the footpeg position not too cramped even for someone of my attenuated stature.
After an hour my knees weren’t begging for mercy the way they do on some sports bikes.
The TFT dash is a thing of beauty, and the mirrors are surprisingly useful, which is a relatively new concept for Ducati whose mirrors were traditionally only good for admiring your hair. Well, they are Italian.
The engine is astonishing, and even in Street, the most gentle of the three riding modes, acceleration is breathtaking to the point of lunacy, but smooth and linear all the way from 3,000rpm to the redline at 14,500rpm. It’s helped by a quickshifter which is the best on any bike I’ve ever ridden.
The brakes are as brutal and linear as the acceleration, and on the way down through the slick six-speed gearbox the autoblipper gives you a little comforting surge of throttle to keep things smooth heading into bends. Inspired.
If there’s little weight on the bars at a standstill, there’s none at all at speed as the wind gets under your chest, leaving handling so light and precise that you only have to think about where you’re going and you are there.
Right, time for a deep breath and a change in modes with the simple toggle switch on the left bar. And if I thought acceleration was mind-bending in Street mode, I was left laughing in my helmet at how ridiculous it was in Sport then Race mode.
I’m never going to be a good enough rider to use a fraction of the potential of a bike like this, and there’s also the small issue of the overdraft I mentioned earlier. However, if you’re a young, rich motorcycle god who appreciates beauty and the beast in equal measure, look no further.
■ Test bike supplied by Millsport Motorcycles, millsportmotorcycles.com.