LANCER wrote on 06/09/13 at 18:47:39:

What would be the benefit of this?

mpescatori:

Well I did some checking.....and found out something interesting.

The Suzuki Savage is a very primitive design whose engine has more in common with my lawn tractor than my car.  The bore is 94mm and the stroke is 94mm....which is square and pretty common for mult-purpose engines that need to be adaptable.  The current price of the Suzuki Savage is $ 5,699 and it is 30 HP.....so it is about $ 190 for each horsepower the engine makes.

The Ducati Panigale is a very high tech design with the current state of the art goodies.  The engine is a twin with a pair of 112 mm pistons having a stroke of just 60.8 mm.  This engine is very "oversquare" and has a lot in common with high revving Formula 1 engines.  The engine size is almost twice the size of the Savage....and the 12,000 rpm's the Ducati nearly doubles what the Savage can do.  The price for the 195 HP S model is $ 22,995 and the R model is $ 29,995.  The S model has a cost per HP of only $ 118....which is cheaper than the Savage!

Obviousuly we can't all spend $ 22,995 for our 2 wheel transportation....but the Ducati makes a lot of HP per dollar spent.  I am not sure how much the cost per HP-mile is if you were to compare the 2 bikes for 1000,000 miles of transportation.......but there is no doubt that the owner of either bike will enjoy the ride!  

I cannot imagine strapping on a 195 hp 2 wheel machine and going for a ride.  I would certainly like to, the experience would just HAVE to be a memorable one.  But what do you do with all that power ?  It is way over what is really usable on the street.
I think I would feel a bit guilty spending that much money for such a wonderfully designed & built machine when I could only use a fraction of its capability in daily riding.
That said, it is a beautiful machine to look at and I really admire the skill it takes to make it.  I saw a documentary on Ducati a couple of years ago, with a  focus on the people working there; many had been there for most of their working life and some were even multi-generational craftsmen.   It is quite a statement about the company and their whole mindset toward their work and vision.

I have to admit that I find this discussion odd, probably because I haven't ridden in decades and am essentially new again to motorcycles. I am 6' 2" and a dozen or so over 250. Just three weeks ago I took the Wife on a 2.5 hour ride via L.A. freeways out to West L.A. for a night out away from the kids and the S40 did great. I do get the cramped leg feel every now and then but I don't get the lack of performance issues that everyone else talks about.

Maybe it's that I don't have a recent comparison of what I could be rocketing off down the road on. Officially, I was right at the maximum weight but the unofficial estimate with fuel and overnight bag was easily more.  There were a couple of times I had to go from 5th to 4th or 4th to 3rd and crank it to slip past a traffic condition and it worked great.

I love that I could rebuild most of this bike myself and the milimalist electronics intrusion means that I could fix most of that too. I was just reading about the new Yamaha Star series 1300 where the water pump and oil pump are the same unit. Does that sound like a good idea to anyone else?

I am very happy with the bike and am over 2,500 miles since bought new at the end of March. I've even cut back on the 85 mph freeway speeds, not because the bike couldn't handle it or give even a little more but based on the advice on this forum - to stay under 80% of max. I'm really wondering what everyone is looking for out of their bikes....

WD wrote on 06/12/13 at 14:32:36:


Ok, fair enough. I guess these are things I will run into down the road.

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I thought the Petcock and Cam Chain Tensioner were 90% of the bike's common ills....

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Huh, in that case, that brings up the question of what bike would be more reliable, easier to fix, more performance or whatever Dave is asking about for the price?

I, myself, chose the Savage for the air-cooled simplicity and the word-of-mouth claims of reliability and "relative to other bikes" simple repair.

oldNslow wrote on 06/13/13 at 11:04:36:


Yeah, I actually stayed away from those on purpose   I see the kids on those things and I think "No way"!! Seems like the bulk of the wrecks and deaths are the under 30 and on a sportbike crowd. When a cruiser goes down it is usually not because of dangerous riding.

dr800...slightly modified... ...

I agree very nice.
What is that fuel tank off?