XDiavel, first Ducati feet-forward cruiser
AIMED AT HARLEY: With 156 hp and high-tech features, ‘low-speed excitement’ billing just doesn’t fit
The newest Ducati, the XDiavel, is the first feet-forward cruiser from the Italian super-bike maker, and it’s an attempt to win market share from the dominant U.S. producer, Harley Davidson.
Ducati’s tag line for the 1262-cc L-twin is “low-speed excitement,” but there’s nothing low speed about it. With 156 horsepower and technological innovations that include a cornering ABS system ordinarily reserved for race-bred machines, the XDiavel is an American-style cruiser for speed freaks.
“Any bike we make, it’s got to have the Ducati DNA,” said Stefano Tarabusi, product manager for the XDiavel, at the launch in San Diego, Calif. “We call it a techno cruiser.”
The Ducati XDiavel is the Italian superbike maker’s first feet-forward cruiser.
Not even Harley’s V-Rod, the muscle bike famously designed in collaboration with Porsche, comes with “launch control,” a feature that allows full-throttle starts without losing traction. The LCD screen on the XDiavel, which connects to your smartphone via blue-tooth to show you what tunes are playing and who is texting you while you’re riding, has a “track” setting to display the bike’s vitals while you’re on the race circuit.
The XDiavel is based on the futuristic 2011 Diavel. (Could Ducati have picked a less confusing name? I think so.) It has a beautiful, unique trellis frame, and weighs 556 pounds soaking wet — about 200 lbs. lighter than most big bikes.
It also pulls hard, hitting its maximum torque of 95 lb.-ft. at a lowly 5,000 revolutions per minute. That’s a big deal for Ducati, most of whose motorcycles need to be revved up to 8,000 rpm or higher before they hit peak pushing power. The Bologna, Italy-based engineers spent a few months testing in the U.S. and realized they’d have to move that figure much lower to satisfy American cruiser customers.
“A North American guy who loves luxury premium brands often has more than one bike in his garage,” Tarabusi said. “He must have a Harley when he wants to ride with the boys, but sometimes he wants something different, something more exciting, something from another world.”
The XDiavel feels a little cramped after a few hours in the saddle, unlike a big bagger. But it’s possible to move the pegs farther forward (or back), and switch out the seat and the handlebars. Ducati says there are 60 possible variations.
Were I to buy this bike, I would spring for the accessory mid-controls and the forward-set bars in the sport pack, and I’d rip up the canyons. But then it would be just a better-looking muscle bike, not the cruiser it was designed to be.
Plus I already have a muscle bike. Herein lies the rub for Ducati — the sport bike guys don’t really need a cruiser that goes super-fast, and the Harley guys already have Harleys. The question is: Will they want more?