Ducati Monster 1100s
DUCATI MONSTER 1100S
CYCLE WORLD TEST
Time flies when you're naked
JOHN BURNS
SIXTEEN YEARS DOESN'T SEEM LIKE SUCH A LONG time, but that's how long it's been since I wrote my first Ducati Monster story for CW, and in fact 1993 was when the first II Monstro appeared on these pages. For 2009, the new Monster 1100S is quite a bit more advanced than the first model, if not appreciably different. I, on the other paw, am just the opposite: not at all more advanced but quite a bit different.
Not so many years ago, I used to dream with some regularity like lots of people that I could !iy-~ more like hop really good. One spring off my incredibly torquey toes would get me airborne above the roof tops. I also dreamed I could pull fantastic, graceful, multi-gear wheelies on my motorcycle. Then I'd wake up. On this new Monster, rolling on the power mid way through second gear feels like that dream could almost become reality: such lovely, smooth torque flows out of the new 1100 engine, it feels as if a system of pulleys activated by the throttle is levitating the front wheel. And the Twin runs so smoothly you feel like you’re just getting started when the rev limiter cuts the juice at 8500 rpm, rudely reminding me I’m unfortunately awake and as wheelie-impaired as ever. Got fork seals?
Hey, it’s not my fault. The 12,000-rpm tachometer—typically Ducati with no redline-is false advertising on this bike. Not that you can see the high-tech LCD tach during daylight hours much, anyway. Whatever, now I dream more of regular bowel movements and Early Bird Specials.
Besides, you’re supposed to keep the wheels on the ground, and if you do that, one of the beauties of the big two-valve Monster Twin is the flavor of the sneaky speed it produces. There you are between the lines of cars at a red light, which turns green. With very little noise or drama-just a little well-silenced tommy-gun racket from its quiet dual exhausts-a glance in the mirrors a few seconds later reveals that the cars are waaaaay back there. This biggest Monster builds speed from a standstill the way cheap credit builds stucco neighborhoods in the desert. The dyno chart on this thing is more like a brickbat, with a wide plateau of more than 60 foot-pounds of torque beginning at just 3500 rpm or so. For racetrack lapping with the other trust-funders, you need a new 1198 or whatever, but for street riding, the old two-valve air-cooled Ducati is tough to beat.
As any Kevin Cameron student will tell you, it’s all about cylinder filling. At low rpm especially, it feels like each 539cc mouthful of air this engine ingests is perfectly spritzed with fuel by the new Siemens injection system, and perfectly sealed within the cylinder for your projection right from idle. Ergo propter hoc, the Monster gets going the instant you tell it to, and never mind all the Rickey Gadson clutch action. Just dump it and twist the throttle.
A big part of the Monster’s performance emanates from its light feeling, and this bike feels light because it is. Just 396 pounds on the CW scales seriously undercuts all sorts of modem liquid-cooled Twins (Ducati’s own 1098 weighs 26 pounds more), and spending the extra $2K for the S-version Monster as seen here is worth every penny if you happen to have that many in your piggybank. Marchesini wheels spin up that much quicker and make the Öhlins suspenders’jobs that much easier. In conjunction with its very nice Bridgestone tires, this is one sweet-riding Monster-even if the new nonlinkage rear end isn’t quite as good at dealing with serial bumps as the old bike’s linkage-equipped rear was.
Comfy as it is, the Monster’s not all about comfort, is it? It’s about projecting he-man masculinity and power and a certain swarthy, stoic detachment (and never mind that the Monsters are popular with lady riders, too).
Doubtless the cantilever-shock rear end is a costand space-saving move, but the single-sided swingarm you get in return is nice compensation. Elsewhere on the Monster, the trade-offs for efficient modular production are a little more obvious and less tasty. The typically graceful Ducati trellis frame (even the name evokes a nicely kept garden) on the new Monster looks more like prison bars welded up by cheap imported labor. The big cast alloy pieces that carry the tailsection and footpegs aren’t really things of beauty, and don't get me started on the plastic gas tank cover, which in addition to being plastic gets the proportions of the original bike not quite right.
Sure, the new digital Monster runs better than the old carbureted versions did, but all the sensors and controls and wires that make that possible cause the bike to look like the only thing it’s missing is an IV drip. There are all sorts of exposed fasteners that used to be-like lots of life’s unpleasant realities-better concealed. And the high dual exhausts may have solved the cornering clearance issues, but they turn the Monster into a cartoon version of itself-good luck getting to that shock on a hot day, because both exhaust pipes wrap it in a loving embrace. All I’m saying is this Ducati sometimes looks like a cheap knock-off of a Ducati. When the sun is up, for instance.
But if you’re more interested in riding the Monster than art-critiquing it, you’re in for a treat. The same things that made the original so fun to ride (and so unique at the time) are still in the mix: instant torque from low speeds, light weight and most of all the dirt-bikey handlebar that lets you throw the Monster around like Cloris Leachman after a bottle of chardonnay.
The new bike supposedly has more
weight on its front tire, and on tight roads the thing reminds me of my dearly departed little TT-R125 Yamaha. You can climb on top and push the Monster down in the comer, dirt-track style, and in the slowest turns it even feels natural to put your foot down. No complaints from the big four-piston Brembos and fully adjustable Öhlins fork when it comes time to slow down. All in all, the Monster serves up a rambunctious ride, and you’ll need a pretty fast piece of pavement or a closed circuit with open sightlines to go any faster on one of those plastic-covered sportbikes with the low clip-ons and stomping 160-horsepower engines.
Oh yes, the Monster takes me back, sniff. In ’93 I was living the dream in a big new townhouse within bicycle distance of the Pacific. I was happily married as far as I could tell, with a bouncing year-old baby boy. Today,
16 years hence, I write from the backyard crabgrass of a decrepit rental in holey boxer shorts sitting in a cheap plastic lawnchair. The work is interrupted by the ex calling to harangue me about finalizing the divorce, and updates of all that’s wrong in the
world jump out from the laptop every time I check my Inbox-about every five minutes with labrat regularity. My new GF, bless her beautiful young heart, calls to remind me there’s a film crew coming to the house tonight to document her motorcycle racing exploits-which are way more exciting than mine ever were-and the child, well, the child seems to be doing great in his first year of high school so I really can’t complain. Everybody’s got their health, which is a good thing because everybody does not have their health insured. Knock wood.
As a matter of fact, I thought I might be catching a cold but then realized it was just the ven turi effect of riding the Monster around in an open-face helmet in brisk 60-degree weather pulling the old phlegm from deep in my lungs' float bowls, the tobaccoey stuff from before I quit smoking a couple years ago. YeeeHahchoo! As a Midwest kid, I can't even com plain about that, since 60 degrees in February is not so bad. And the rental house is actually pretty sweet, really, and so's the girl friend and all the rest of it.
And that's the beauty of the Monster. Whatever's bugging you, whatever worries might be on your feeble mind, this is the motorcycle i .~ - . to blow it
right back out the other end and suck out the poisons. On the Monster, you're always riding on the sunny side of the street. Is this the original naked bike? Come to think of it, I believe it is. And when Triumph showed up a few years later with the Speed Triple, my favorite bunch of motorcycles were off and running.
Hats off to the guys with the lat est sportbikes and the shiny new leathers, but their motos must regard most of them as my rescued greyhound regards me when I take him for a run: Is that all you got? Really? Bikes like the Monster, in contrast, want to involve you. Here, twist this, you'll love it! What a great toy. Crank open the throttle when the tires are cold, and the Monstrosity peels out from low revs just like the good old days, in a non-threatening way thanks to that wide handlebar. You don't need a trackday to deploy it, you just need an errand. (Say, if a film crew is coming, I need vacuum cleaner bags-they lose their structural integrity if you reuse them more than about 10 times).
Where was I? Oh, right, realistic experiences. In the era of the incredible shrinking pie in which we find ourselves, while the marketers trip all over themselves and work the focus groups overtime to find new ways to tell the world how authentic their brand is, the Monster really doesn't need to add any artificial ingredients or high-fructose corn syrup at all. It's the real deal.
MONSTER 1100S
$13,995
