Living with a Ducati Panigale V4 and Zero DSR electric bike
Carbon wheels add an extra layer of sophistication to our Panigale, but can they justify such a high price? ‘On a ten-lap track session you’ll be seven seconds faster’
Yes, I know, carbon wheels are an expensive indulgence on a bike already costing the national average wage for a whole year, but if you’re in a position where you can afford to splash out £2937 on these ten-spoke BST Rapid Teks, you’ll want to know what they’re like? At your service…
BST worked closely with Ducati (with Audi looking on) to meet the exacting standards required to supply carbon wheels for the current Superleggera. These Rapid Teks are produced using the same manufacturing methods, so they’re not only bombproof, they elevate my V4 S to new levels of sexiness and improve performance, too.
A few years ago at Rockingham we tested a set of BST carbon rims back-toback with cast aluminium wheels on our long-term test Ducati 899 Panigale. They were 0.7 seconds a lap faster, which might not sound a lot, but during a 10-lap trackday session you’ll be seven seconds ahead on the lighter items. The Rapid Teks are just as impressive for the road, too, as I discovered when I fitted them just before a ten-day, 3150mile ride around Europe. They don’t make a huge difference to the way the Ducati turns at sensible speeds; the
V4 S doesn’t have any problems in that department, anyway. But they let you run a softer suspension set-up, which ultimately gives you a plusher ride and more grip.
It’s easy to get to that perfect setting, thanks to the way the semi-active electronic forks and shock are adjusted. Scroll through the colour dash menu and you’re greeted with a pictogram of the V4, annotated with the suspension functions you need. It describes things in terms of ‘support’, rather than rebound and compression damping, to make it easier to understand. Preload is still mechanically adjustable, but it’s bang-on for the road and doesn’t need tweaking.
This easy adjustment let me nail a perfect set-up after a few hours of fitting the wheels, just by pulling over to the side of the road every so often and pressing a few buttons and taking away the support from the forks and shocks (basically knocking off the compression damping each end). Now my V4’s ride is so plush and controlled it feels like a factory race bike and all because of those sexy wheels.
Those settings are stored in my Street riding mode, so if I want to stiffen it up to let my hair down a bit on a nice piece of road, the setting is just a flick of a switch away in Sport or Race mode. Clever, eh?