05-10-2015, 06:56 AM
So, Ducati had a little demo event this weekend at a local dealership (Motor Cafe Sunnyvale). I decided to head on over and sign up to demo something. At first I was going to go with the 800-ish Monster but then the Scrambler caught my eye and I switched my pick to that. Very interesting choice!
Here are my impressions.
The bike's build is very small and narrow. It feels and looks small with me on it compared to the CB. But, it was really pretty comfortable to sit on! The bars are up pretty high, they were in a decent place for me.
As soon as I turned the bike on, I could feel the character of the engine thumping on the handlebars. Not overbearing though, and not in a bad way, but definitely a stark contrast from the smoothness of our inline 4.
There's a bit of jerkiness on the throttle in first gear but if you shift pretty quick it's not too bad. The engine braking feels pretty hefty, too.
Now, the interesting part.. this sucker gets up to speed with very little twist of the throttle, and pretty quickly and smoothly. Does not feel like it's going as fast as what the speedo indicates! I was very surprised how confident I felt on such a small and light bike, even getting up to freeway speeds. I don't know if I would trust myself riding around on that sucker!
Hitting a bump in the pavement on the freeway I got a bit of shock to the handlebars, so maybe the front forks were not set up very well, not sure.. been over the same spot on my CB quite a lot of times and didn't notice the same thing.
Very flickable and nimble, and it felt very grippy with the particular tires they put on it.
I would have loved to take it to some of my usual twisties, but they did choose a route with some freeway and some semi-residential twisties (though not as much uphill/downhill and tight corners as my usual territory). I thought it was really great of them to give us that sort of route though. When I did the Indian demo in San Jose, it was just a few blocks within the city, so this was a real treat.
I'm not running to trade my CB in for one of these, but I definitely, definitely see the appeal, and I think it is a superb little bike, really!
![[Image: e8b793c594c9af3c245c3388df0c38c1.jpg]](https://cb1100forum.net/forum/uploads/imp/201505/e8b793c594c9af3c245c3388df0c38c1.jpg)
Here are my impressions.
The bike's build is very small and narrow. It feels and looks small with me on it compared to the CB. But, it was really pretty comfortable to sit on! The bars are up pretty high, they were in a decent place for me.
As soon as I turned the bike on, I could feel the character of the engine thumping on the handlebars. Not overbearing though, and not in a bad way, but definitely a stark contrast from the smoothness of our inline 4.
There's a bit of jerkiness on the throttle in first gear but if you shift pretty quick it's not too bad. The engine braking feels pretty hefty, too.
Now, the interesting part.. this sucker gets up to speed with very little twist of the throttle, and pretty quickly and smoothly. Does not feel like it's going as fast as what the speedo indicates! I was very surprised how confident I felt on such a small and light bike, even getting up to freeway speeds. I don't know if I would trust myself riding around on that sucker!
Hitting a bump in the pavement on the freeway I got a bit of shock to the handlebars, so maybe the front forks were not set up very well, not sure.. been over the same spot on my CB quite a lot of times and didn't notice the same thing.
Very flickable and nimble, and it felt very grippy with the particular tires they put on it.
I would have loved to take it to some of my usual twisties, but they did choose a route with some freeway and some semi-residential twisties (though not as much uphill/downhill and tight corners as my usual territory). I thought it was really great of them to give us that sort of route though. When I did the Indian demo in San Jose, it was just a few blocks within the city, so this was a real treat.
I'm not running to trade my CB in for one of these, but I definitely, definitely see the appeal, and I think it is a superb little bike, really!