Ducati Monster S4Rs Review – Forever the Ultimate Monster
What happens when you are faced with the realization that your life in actuality no longer resembles your life in your mind (did it ever)? As a lifetime sports bike enthusiast from the days when the GSX-R750 redefined what a sports bike was and a former club level road racer it seemed axiomatic that I would always own a sports bike. A bike that reminded me of my rapidly fading youth, the mad days of battling the canyons with my riding buddies and the track exploits that provide years of material for reminiscing. So you can understand then why my last 2 bikes have been a 2006 Yamaha R1 and a 2002 Honda VTR1000SP2 (RC51). However the reality of a busy career with the requisite travel, a young family, and joints and muscles that can no longer be fooled into calling the super sport crouch comfortable, mean I have branched out from the hyper sports genre for the first time ever. Is it really possible to achieve the thrills of an open class hyper sport on something more comfortable and less powerful – or have I just sold out?
This is what I was thinking as I considered my first ride on the blood red Ducati Monster S4Rs. Have I discovered something that is a clever alternative or am I simply one step away from a Harley Sportster? As a styling statement the S4Rs certainly hits the high notes. The crafted Italian styling manages to pull off attractive lines harking to the café racers of old along with the promise of a harder edge underneath for those who want to explore. And it has all the gear. No motorcycle I have owned has come replete with such bling as full Ohlins suspension, marchesini rims, 4 pad Brembo calipers and the de rigeur set of termignoni pipes. The go comes from a testastretta 998cc twin, more or less the same as the last 999’s save for different (smaller) injectors. With the 50mm full termi system and Ducati performance EPROM installed it promises around 130bhp at the wheel, plenty but at least 15 shy of my ’06 R1.
Not having owned an Italian machine before I was half expecting basic running to be more problematic than it was. The Ducati starts with a stab of its servo controlled started button (that continues to crank by itself) and settled immediately into a smooth idle with the expected basso boom (on the loud side but not offensive) accompanied by the trademark ball bearings in a tin can dry clutch rattle. My bike has an aftermarket clutch slave cylinder booster, which means I don’t experience the famous tough men only may apply Ducati clutch pull. Moving off is easy with the low-end torque and shortish gearing, the engine displaying all the sophistication of a Japanese machine and revving quite quickly. The gearbox, against my prejudice, is snick-snick smooth. Torque is plentiful and a quarter twist of the throttle from a walking pace pops the front up. I learn later that the bike will also easily lift off the throttle in 2nd and go very light pulling hard in 3rd adding to the perceived pace and excitement.
The riding position sees a reasonable hike to the pegs but nothing like an R1 or ZX-10. Similarly there is a reach to the Magura tapered bars which some complain about, but it is much more comfortable than what I am used to and works to put you in a good pose for the wind pressure that freeway speeds bring. Immediately it feels different, since you are sitting more upright looking ahead and only seeing the bike in your peripheral vision. This is quite different from a sports bike where you are canted down. Overall the experience is akin to sitting on a bike game in an arcade, looking up and seeing the world coming at you.
The engine is a relaxed 4,500rpm at 75mph and responds briskly to the throttle at this speed. A brief trip to a, um, higher speed whilst overtaking still feels comfortable enough, the small bikini fairing making a surprising impact on the windblast on my chest whilst my head and shoulders are out in the breeze. Finally in the twisties and the Monster steers nicely but there is more of a sense of rolling into the turns than the point and shoot style of the R1. The wide bars provide much more leverage than clip-ons but the longer wheelbase slows things down and you need to pour the bike into turns rather than snap it. I am used to using my bodyweight through the pegs a lot and this has much less impact on the Monster, at least in part because it is hard to get your toe on the right hand peg because your heel bangs into the carbon fibre exhaust guard for the twin right exit pipes. The bike also feels like it is too low at the back. Luckily there is a separate ride height adjuster on the rear shock and I am sure that a few turns will quicken the steering up.
The bike feels confidence inspiring even as it moves around a little more especially under acceleration. The torquey twin quickly transitions from a healthy midrange to a stonking top end shove above 6,000rpm, catapulting you to the next turn. Here the 999R spec 4 pad Brembos offer truly stupendous stopping power, overwhelming the forks as they dive too readily (mental note for a few more clicks of compression damping). The power feels enough to bother open class sport bikes in roads where speeds are kept to below 120 mph. After that the top-end hit of the inline fours would be telling. However the Monster slingshots itself out of turns so hard it would take a well ridden four to pass down the short shutes on most mountains passes. On a tight backroad where my R1 would sometimes struggle against its 100mph gearing in first, the Monster leaps out second.
The nature of the performance is different too. The Monster is more visceral, shoving you forward as the world starts to rush by, with each twist of throttle feeling like it is dialing up another set of ponies whereas the R1 was the exact opposite, not really providing that much sense of thrust, instead simply warping the horizon and bending it towards you at a sometimes alarming rate. The performance of the Ducati is just that much more accessible since the Yamaha only started to seriously boogy from 10,000 revs, a level that was rarely reached for more than a few seconds on the street. Back on the freeway heading for home I ponder my original question. Can this bike really be a credible replacement for an open class sportbike?
The answer is yes. Properly setup, I can feel my Monster is going to be a serious weapon in the canyons and will take a lot less effort to extract its relatively more limited performance than the high effort R1. It will never flick into a turn hard on the brakes like a genuine hyper sport, but for almost anyone, almost all the time, it will be near enough. And then, when the adrenaline is returning to normal levels you can ride it home, enjoying the torquey, effortless mid-range power delivery and reveling in the exotic components and Italian style. Yes, the Monster is fine for impressing the Starbucks crowd but it really has got substantial sporting ability under that style. No need to consider a Harley just yet then!
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