March 10, 2003
By Dave Abrahams

Let's get the superlatives out of the way right at the start. Quite simply, the Ducati 999 is the best-handling motorcycle I have ever ridden. Period.

It is not only an improvement on its predecessor, the iconic 916, but also a major step forward in terms of balance, road-holding, stability under braking and steering precision, difficult though that may be to believe by anybody who rode the earlier machine.

It really is that good.

Sadly, it is nowhere near as pretty as Tamburini's masterpiece. It looks unfinished in several important areas and I have yet to hear anybody say they like the headlight treatment.

The lights look like an afterthought; check out Neil Hodgson's race bike, which looks so much better without them, and you'll see what I mean.

However most of the details are exquisite. The swing-arm is a work of art and the fairing (apart from the lights) is Terblanche at his best: smoothly fluid without a superfluous curve or accent, tautly sculpted around the mechanicals to create the smallest possible package while still providing essential cooling airflow through the radiators.

Pierre Terblanche is a serious rider and everything he designs has to accommodate his tall and burly dimensions; both his strength and his downfall.

Under the skin

The motor made possible the striking improvements to the chassis. The cylinder-head castings of the Testastretta (narrow head) engine are markedly more compact than those of the earlier Desmoquattro L-twin and allowed Terblanche to move the engine forward in the frame.

That gave a more forward-biased weight distribution while also allowing a revision of the front-end geometry to take advantage of the latest developments in suspension and brakes.

The central spark plug and 25-degree included valve angle of the compact combustion chamber allow the use of flat-topped pistons while retaining a high 11.4:1 compression ratio. Compared to the Desmoquattro, the bore has grown from 98 to 100mm but the stroke has shrunk from 66 to 63.5mm, lowering piston speeds and allowing higher engine revolutions.

The 999 also has a deeply conical sump with the pickup at the bottom to ensure that the oil pump doesn't suck air even under what Terblanche dryly refers to as "aggressive acceleration". He's well aware of some Ducati riders' penchant for spectacular wheelies.

The latest version of Magneti Marelli's very quick-acting electronic fuel injection system squirts through just one nozzle in each of a pair of gaping 54mm throttle bodies that take up practically the entire floor of the suitcase-sized airbox.

It's controlled by the most sophisticated electronic layout yet fitted to a motorcycle and is based on a controller area network and two system nodes, one in the instrument panel and the other in the engine control unit.

Data from each sensor is sent to the nearest node, which then transmits it in digital form to the network and the central processing units (computers, Cyril!) via a CAN line that consists of just two wires rather than the usual telephone exchange found in the main loom of a modern motorcycle.

All the high-tech gas flow leaves the premises through an asymmetrical exhaust system that uses a long and narrow front header tube and a shorter, wider rear down-pipe to feed both exhausts into a single large box-shaped exhaust can under the rear seat.

The issue unit has a throaty, if muted, rumble – but I'm sure Italian aftermarket firms Arrow and Termignoni would have been working on something a little more authoritative even before the bike was launched late last year.

In any case the intake roar coming up from the air box as the motor comes on song (apt choice of words, that) is enough to keep the rider revving it hard just to listen to the music.

The motor's power delivery is superb. It will pull quite comfortably from around 3000rpm in town, although it is a little prone to power thudding below four. From then on the thrust comes on hard and strong; Ducati claims 91kW for this, the lowest-specced of the three versions – and these are serious real-world kilowatts, not the Japanese bonsai variety.

Yet the motor seems perfectly tractable around town, burbling along in the traffic without stumbling or spitting back through the intakes, courtesy of the unusually steep cam lobes made possible by the desmodromic valve system.

The Marelli spritzers are built to work at high revs; their action is sudden and jerky under these conditions but a smooth touch on the twist-grip keeps the power delivery relatively civilised.

Then you crack it open and the insanely muscular torque delivery will have you giggling inside your helmet. Maximum twist is an arm-wrenching 98Nm at 8000rpm but it makes more than 70 all the way from five to 10 (by comparison, Yamaha's R1 sport flagship peaks at 68.8).

The result is a bike that accelerates harder than anything this side of a jet aircraft and keeps on accelerating across a power band a wide as the Kalahari.

Power it on going into your favourite corners and just keep winding it up as you go through, coming out far harder and faster than you can – or would dare to – with anything else, with no need to change gear until you have it safely pointed down the next straight.

The motor runs very smoothly below 7000 revs; above that it begins to vibrate strongly through the grips and foot pegs accompanied by a hard-edged hammering intake noise that warns you you're on a serious power trip; thereafter everything happens very quickly right up to the shift-lights at 10 and the rev-limiter at 10 500rpm.

On IOL's top end run it thundered up to 250 in one continuous blast and topped out at 271km/h with the rev-counter showing a needle's width less than 10 000. This was perhaps a little slower than I expected but even at full chat it was rock steady, with just the faintest shimmy through the bars right at the limit.

The rest of the drive train is just as impressive; the hydraulically actuated dry clutch is Ducati's quietest and most tractable yet though it did become very grabby in heavy traffic on a hot day. It soon recovered its equanimity on the open road and stood up to repeated full-bore takeoffs in performance testing without any judder or slip.

Ducati sports gearboxes are renowned for their slick action; this one is light and crisp, though notchier than previous efforts. That said, these transmissions are finished and polished by hand so they can vary a little; this one had just over 2000km at the time of the review and might improve as it clocks up distance.

During the 545km that I rode it (all in one intensely concentrated day, I might add) it never once missed an upshift. It did, however, twice miss the shift from fourth to third – once in heavy traffic in Stellenbosch and once going down to the left-hand turn one at Cape Town's Killarney racetrack.

In both cases I just waited until road speed had dropped off a little and tried again, without fuss or drama, thinking it was operator error. However, World Superbike rider Lance Isaacs later confirmed that this specific bike had done the same to him, so it's as well to be a little more deliberate with it on downshifts than is the norm on big L-twins.

As with all Ducati superbikes, there is little or no lash in the drive train and only the faintest hint of play in the cush drive on takeoff.

Chassis and suspension

The tubular steel trellis frame remains, its geometry subtly revised to move the centre of mass forwards; the neat eccentric bushing in the steering head that allows the rake angle to be varied from a reasonably relaxed 24.5° to an incredibly quick-turning 23.5° is now standard across the range.

It's not mild steel, by the way, but a very complex alloy called ALS450 that welds easily and has a very high modulus of elasticity, which is how Ducatis are able to survive heavy tumbles on the track.

The rear sub-frame, a completely separate unit held on by four Allen screws, is all new, an oddly cantilevered arrangement with one straight and one curved tube on each side. It's not very pretty and could have done with neat plastic or carbon fibre covers below the seat.

One very practical touch is that the revised front end allows for 28.5° of lock in both directions, making this the first Ducati with a decent turning circle.

The front wheel is supported by a pair of fully adjustable, 43mm Showa upside-downies, complete with that distinctive gold TiN-coating that says so clearly "I'm expensive". Cost notwithstanding, they work superbly; set on Ducati's recommended median settings, they track perfectly over all but the bumpiest roads, keeping the front tyre in contact with the tar at all times.

They're incredibly forgiving; during track testing I dived into Killarney's off-camber turn two way too fast (the bike was doing fine - it was me that was panicking!) and grabbed an injudicious two fingers of front brake. On any other bike the front end would have tucked under and I would have gone down in a classic low-side.

The 999 just twitched in apparent annoyance and rolled on around the corner on a closed throttle while I got my act together.

I took the Ducati over some of my favourite twisties on a quiet Thursday afternoon (and they call this work?); it set benchmarks on roads I've been riding for years. At high speeds the front end is superlative; it tracks absolutely true, steers to a millimetre every time and turns in like a 250GP bike without any twitching.

You can fling this 199kg Big Twin on its ear like a lightweight and it laps it up; only on fast flip-flops is there any hint of the bike's weight – then it feels like a well-balanced middleweight!

The bike dives very little under hard braking and the front end remains rock steady until the front tyre begins to squirm; not many bikes can do that to Michelin's best.

The front suspension is topped off by easily the most beautiful upper triple clamp I have seen. It is machined from a solid piece of aircraft grade aluminium alloy, its design refined so that metal (and weight) is added only where needed.

It's more than superb engineering, it’s a work of art and proof that if something looks right, it'll work right.

The rear suspension is just as good; it has to cope with huge power so its action is a little harsher but the superbly sand-cast double-sided swing arm is probably more rigid than the frame and keeps the plot in line while the Showa monoshock on a rising-rate linkage takes care of everything else.

It gave me a bit of a hard time over my "bumpy test" route but never once stepped out under power, no matter the provocation; it would squat a little under full throttle if I was sitting right back on the bum-stop but the chassis refused to shake or shimmy even under full thrust.

Sometimes you have to stop

Only the limited edition 999R gets the radially mounted Brembo GP-style front brake callipers. The S and this cooking version have something entirely new: at first glance they look like the standard Goldline callipers painted silver – until you notice that there are no bolts holding them together.

Yes Cyril, Brembo has come up with a one-piece calliper which can be mounted on conventional forks – and the results are just as good as you'd expect. They bite on 320mm discs, reduced in thickness by 0.5mm to 4.5mm to reduce unsprung weight, with braided stainless-steel hoses leading to a gorgeous little radial master cylinder under a specially-made triangular reservoir.

Radial master cylinders give an incredibly direct feel for what's happening between tyre and tar; they're a big part of just how good these brakes are.

Suffice it to say that you can modulate the braking from weight transfer without slowing to a full-on stoppie – and back again - with just two fingers, on your way into a corner. There's almost no free lever travel and their action is totally linear; the more you squeeze the more you stop.

Although they have a little less bite than the full-on racing tackle, that actually makes them a little easier to use in the real world – as witness my near-disaster in turn two.

The rear brake seemed at first to have no power or feel; I thought it was a real dud until I noticed that the master cylinder and lever are reversed, facing backwards as per the 916, but at a rather steeper angle.

As soon as I learned to push slightly forward as well as down on the foot lever, the back brake worked a whole lot better; I was able to use it to set the back end for fast corners and even to stop the bike in traffic when I was using my left hand on the clutch and my right hand to fiddle with my helmet visor.

Ergonomics

The foot pedal on the rear brake lever can be adjusted for and aft about 20mm in a slot in the lever arm, to fit various sizes of boot. This is part of an impressive range of adjustments available to enable the bike to be tailored to just about any rider.

Ducati asked test riders from 1.65m to 1.95m tall for their input; the result was foot pegs are five-way adjustable for height and reach, both hand levers are widely adjustable for reach, foot-brake and gear lever are tuneable for foot size and – on the monoposto models – the seat and tank are adjustable fore and aft over a range of 20mm.

Rear ride height is also adjustable as part of the suspension package.

Thanks to the narrow chassis, even with the foot pegs at their lowest setting, ground clearance is more than generous; you're unlikely to touch down anything on this bike without falling off first.

The bike looks long and low despite its cobby 1420mm wheelbase, thanks to the low tail-piece – which also makes it easier to get on and off. Seat height is an eminently reasonable 780mm; you sit in rather than on this bike to a greater extent than on the 916.

The tailpiece is generously wide, though, and the bum-stop is deeply curved; this is the first bike I've ridden that cradles your backside all the way round to your hip bones. It's a very reassuring feeling, as if you're part of the package. The saddle is not as thinly padded as it looks but it's not an all-day seat; I was pretty stiff after 320km non-stop.

The seat also gets very warm, due to the exhaust plumbing running right underneath it. At moderate speeds, in a following wind situation where the slipstream is unable to blow the hot air away, it can become uncomfortably hot. The answer to that, of course, is that this motorcycle was not built for riding at moderate speeds.

The low, flat-topped fuel tank is narrow at the back but widens in svelte curves towards the front. The makers claim that it holds 15.5 litres – I ran it very nearly dry twice in one day and never squeezed in more than 14. Overall fuel consumption was just over seven litres/100km, not bad for a litre-class sports twin being ridden hard.

In true Italian sports bike style the screen is just too low; it directs the slipstream right into the rider's face, which can become tiring on a long day's ride. The screen is also marred by what looks like a plastic pimple, an extra light which was apparently imposed on the design by American regulations stipulating the minimum permissible height for a daylight riding light on a street-bike.

There's already an aftermarket screen without it.

Also typically Italian are the mirrors, beautiful plastic sculptures incorporating the front indicators, quickly detachable for track days, which give the rider a clear view of his own forearms and precious little else.

The body panels are beautifully moulded and finished; everything fits neatly and there are no embarrassing gaps, but at this level of pricing I would expect stainless steel nuts and bolts.

The switchgear is standard CEV stuff as used on a lot of Hondas; it's robust and well made. Magneti Marelli, on the other hand, made the instrument panel, to Terblanche's requirements. It has a classic back-lit, white-faced rev counter at the top, surrounded by warning icons for neutral, low fuel level, ignition system faults, engine oil level, indicators, high beam, the immobiliser and an over-rev indicator with signals for 200 and 100rpm before the rev limiter.

Below it there's a digital screen showing speed, time, distance, battery voltage, coolant temperature, ambient air temperature, fuel economy, distance to the next service and the status of the anti-theft system.

There's also a lap timer, activated by pushing the starter button as you cross the line or by an optional infra-red sensing device mounted at the trackside, which records - and stores, for 40 laps - the elapsed time, highest speed achieved, highest engine revs and any over-rev occurrences.

Yet with all that, in default mode it shows speed, odo and the clock – basic stuff that's easy to read – while the lighting on both dial and panel is automatically adjusted to compensate for ambient light. It's a magnificent piece of design, packing a wealth of functions into a very compact package which could easily have been too complex to be worth using, but that tells you what you need to know up front, with everything else available on demand.

And that's really what this bike is all about; never mind the incredibly beautiful forged and machined wheels, the electronic gadgetry on the flight deck and the rudimentary passenger accommodation, this is a riding machine pure and simple.

It is beyond question the best there is and, as its predecessor did, it will become the standard by which sports bikes are measured.

It really is that good.

Test bike from Ducati Cape Town.

Price: R199 999.

Click here to use Motoring.co.za's repayments calculator.

Specifications:

Motor: Liquid-cooled four-stroke 90-degree L-twin.
Capacity: 998cc
Bore x stroke: 100 x 63.5mm.
Valvegear: DOHC with four desmodromic valves per cylinder.
Compression ratio: 11.4:1.
Power: 91kW at 9500rpm.
Torque: 102Nm at 8000rpm.
Induction: Marelli electronic fuel-injection, with two single-injector 54mm throttle bodies.
Ignition: Electronic.
Starting: Electric.
Clutch: Hydraulically actuated, dry multi-plate clutch.
Transmission: Six-speed gearbox with chain final drive.
Suspension: 43mm Showa TiN-coated upside-down cartridge forks adjustable for preload, compression and rebound damping at front, progressive linkage with Showa monoshock adjustable for preload, compression and rebound damping at rear.
Brakes: 320mm semi-floating discs with Brembo four-pot opposed piston callipers at front, 240mm disc with Brembo opposed piston calliper at rear.
Tyres: Front: 120/70-ZR17 tubeless. Rear: 190/50-ZR17 tubeless.
Wheelbase: 1420m.
Seat height: 780mm.
Dry weight: 199kg.
Fuel capacity: 15.5 litres (claimed).
Price: R199 999.

Click here to use Motoring.co.za's repayments calculator.

Go back 

Useful TOOLS

Email this article       Print this article       Search Prices       Repayment Calculator       Set as homepage

Free NEWSLETTER

The latest motoring news - 3 times a week. Preview Sign up

+ Click to Enlarge

THE MAESTRO'S TOUCH: The 999 has the stamp of South African designer Pierre Terblanche all over it.