I attended the Ducati Streetfighter unveiling at Ducati Seattle on December 11. Thanks to Ducati Seattle for putting on a fun event. They provided food from neighbooring Seattle favorite, Buca De Beppo, and fine Italian beer and wine.

Many members from my motorcycle club (DesmoNorthwest) were there as well as the Ferrari club of Seattle.

Here are my impressions of the bike without having ridden it. I’m told it won’t be in showrooms until May?? Anyhow, I love the styling. It shares the sportbike rear end look as the existing superbike line, yet has no front fairing and raised handlebars to make it more of a “streetfighter”. Streetfighter bikes originated back in the day when garageheads converted their sportbikes into “naked” works of art by stripping the fairings and revealing their customized engines and frames, etc. Handlebars were raised for comfort and bulky headlights were swapped out with simple, and lighter systems. I like how the S model has traction control which will come in handy on those who like to do track days.

Below is video from the event which can also be seen on Ducati North America’s site along with a description at this link: Ducati North America

Below is a video of a Ducati D16RR Dyno Run taken at Ducati Seattle. Thanks to Dave Roosevelt, owner, for allowing me access to video from inside the Dyno Room.

Max HP recorded for the day was 181.2 SAE at the rear wheel.

Aurora Suzuki in Seattle, WA had their annual dyno day today so I brought the stock 848 out there to find out what kind of horsepower it puts out. The event was more of a shoot out to win prizes. No print outs of the dyno runs were made, nor was there any in-depth analysis of the runs.

At the end of the run, the tech reported it hit a max hp of 111.6.

Below is video of the run:

I have to admit, MCN Senior Road Tester Michael Neeves, in my opinion has one of the greatest jobs in the world. Not only does he get to test the latest bikes, he gets to test ride the latest MotoGP bikes. Here is a video of him riding MotoGP Champion, Casey Stoner’s Desmosedeci.

Check out this review of the $75k Ducati Desmosedici by MCN. It’s as close to a MotoGP bike as you can get.

This is one of the better videos of the 1098R being tested by MCN.

Check out MotorcycleNews.com’s comparison of the Ducati 848 vs. 1098.