Men Free Blog

This is truly the best Ducati bike that you are likely to get your hands on, considering that the Desmosedici RR MotoGP replica is probably out of reach and certainly sold out. Don’t feel bad, though, ’cause the 1098 R is a most excellent consolation prize. We never did hate on the 999 like many Ducati loyalists seemed to, but we still recognize the 1098 R as a vast improvement. The details read as you might expect, such as the bigger bore, bigger stroke, bigger valves, and bigger throttle bodies housed inside the sand-cast engine cases that ought to adequately hurtle the Öhlins TTXR single rear shock and fully adjustable 43 mm Öhlins fork with low friction Titanium Nitride towards the next apex. Keeping up appearances is the carbon fiber bodywork, tri-colored color scheme (plus natural carbon fiber finish) and gold Marchesini Y-shaped forged wheels. Bello indeed.
Leading the list of electronic goodies is the traction control system, which is enabled with the included track-only ECU tuning. We imagine, however, that many riders will run the upgraded programming on the street regardless. Can’t blame ‘em if they do, and they’ll be rewarded with a boost from 180 horsepower to 186. Every little bit counts, right?
[Source: Ducati]

Ferdinand Peich, the Chairman of Volkswagen, wishes that the German automaker had purchased Ducati all the way back in 1985 when the iconic Italian motorcycle marque was experiencing financial troubles and was for sale. “I would still like a small, valuable motorcycle manufacturer,” says the 71-year-old Peich, who rides a Ducati himself. Considering the close ties that Volkswagen has with Porsche, which helped create Harley-Davidson’s sportiest models, we could imagine some amazing two-wheeled creations rolling out of Wolfsburg. In fact, there’s a certain three-wheeler called the GX3 that we’d love to see back in the product pipeline ASAP.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req’d]