Dream Ducatis: MCN tests the very best Bologna ever built

Welcome to MCN. The Superlites, the Superleggeras. It's dream ride time. These three Ducatis are the most special, most exotic road-going Ducati Superbikes ever built. And it all started in 2014 with the Superleggera 1199 V-Twin. Back in the day, this would have cost 54,000 pounds based on the R, as all these bikes are, and only 500 built. Same goes with all of these. This made 200 horsepower, weighs 155 kilos. And the big thing about this one is that everything was magnesium, from the frame to the wheels, and then loads of carbon fiber and titanium as well. Fast forward to 2017 with the 1299 Superleggera, still a V-Twin, 72,000 pound when this was made, 156 kilos and 215 BHP. Now the headline news on this one was that it was all carbon fiber from the chassis to the wheels. It was the first Ducati to have slide control, up and down quick shifter, all the bells and whistles in the day. And then 2020, it's the V4 era. So this is the Superleggera V4, a beast of a thing. Cost 90,000 pounds, makes 221 BHP with a standard pipe, weighs 159 kilos. So this is basically packed with everything, all the technology that you can possibly want for today, all the electronics. And of course, these MotoGP wings, stacked wings, loads of them. And they say that at 170 mile an hour, produces 50 kilos of downforce. We won't be doing that today, but we're here in the Scottish mountains and we're gonna get to ride all these three bikes for the first time on the road properly, because we've ridden them all at Mugello before. We're gonna get to enjoy them. We're gonna get to see what they're like in the real world. What an incredible experience it's been riding these Superleggeras on the road, on the mountain roads up here in Scotland. Now, we know that the level of these three bikes is right up there from riding them on the track before. So it's been really interesting to see what they're like on the road, because that's really, as special as they are, what they've been designed for. So the 1199 is kind of like it was on the track. It is a right feisty devil. It's very stiff. It feels like a cardboard box with two wheels and a massive engine in between. Really quick, but it doesn't like bumps. It's built for Mugello. It's built for smooth roads, but it's very visceral. It's very involving. Sounds incredible. The quick shifters just bang through the gears, but you notice that it's incredible to say. It's kind of feeling its age a little bit because there's no auto blipper. The dash layout is quite old fashioned when compared to the newer bikes, but I mean, I love the color. You probably can't see it on camera, but that is full-on retina-burning Marlboro red, and it is fantastic. When you jump on the 1299, and in the same way that the standard 1199 to 1299 changed, you can feel that in the Superleggera. So it's much more refined. It's much more fluid. The suspension works a lot nicer. You've got a blipper. You've got a more modern dash. You've got more electronics, but it's still an angry beast. You ride it hard on the road and it dances, but again, visceral, amazing creation. Then the V4. So if the level of those other two are there, the V4 is right up there, and you kind of come off the bike thinking, I wish all motorbikes were like this, but they can't be because this is a 90-gram bike, and you feel every cent of the price tag because the ride quality couldn't be better. The grip couldn't be better. The engine, it's just so smooth and long-legged compared to the twins. It's so easy to ride fast. The brakes, just the sense of occasion of the bike, but the thing that I love most about it is just so smooth, so easy, so flattering, and very few people are in a fortunate position where they can afford a bike like this, but if you are, you're gonna be buying yourself one of the most ultimate road bike as well as a track bike. It's absolutely incredible. So for me, it's kind of spoiled the rest of the bikes I'm gonna be riding again because I don't think anything's gonna match up to the V4 Superleggera in a very long time. So the big toy in Ducati's toy cupboard now is the Superleggera V4. It's the best V4 you can buy. Fastest, lightest, most powerful, most expensive, but of course, it's not the first Ducati V4, special V4 that Ducati have produced. The Desmosedici RR came out in 2008. It's a replica of the 2006 MotoGP bike, and we've been lucky enough to ride them both back-to-back here at Nock Hill thanks to Ducati Glasgow, and both of these bikes belong to one of their customers, so very trusting. Getting back on the Desmosedici, we rode it quite a lot back in the day when it was launched at the launch of Mugello on the road, on different racetracks, and it's like meeting an old friend again. It feels quite different to modern bikes. It's quite low, it's quite long, but it feels incredibly light. And the V4 engine, it just sounds amazing, but it's very, very tractable, quite easy to ride. The suspension's quite plush, even though it's a stiff chassis. And you can kind of get around the track pretty nicely, even though the tyres and the brakes are feeling their age now. So it's someone else's bike, didn't want to push it too hard, but you can really feel the MotoGP genes. We were lucky enough to ride those bikes back in the day for journalist tests, and it does feel a lot like the real thing in character, but the power is a lot, lot less. I mean, this has probably got about 160 horsepower at the back wheel, really, so it's quite docile, but it's really tractable. You can go around this track in kind of fifth, sixth gear if you wanted to, and it'll just pull out all the corners. No electronics, very, very raw, very direct, but amazing. But then you get on this, and it is just like you've got on a spaceship. It feels a lot closer to a proper world super bike. It's got the power, it's got the handling, and it feels more like a modern bike. It's roomier, it's taller, lower at the front, higher at the back, loads of electronics, quick shifter, auto blipper, which just spits, bang, bang, bang, it sounds incredible. And because it's got modern tyres, which warm up after a couple of laps, Pirelli Supercorsa SPs, you can really start to enjoy the bike. And the harder you push it, the better it is. And it's a lot easier to ride than the normal V4. It feels like it's got more flex in it. It feels a lot lighter. Even though it feels heavier than the Desmosedici, it kind of feels a little bit more damped, a little bit more of a solid bike, which is quite surprising, but really easy to ride. Whether all those wings work here at Knockhill, I'm not sure, because it still wants to take off over this big yump. But yeah, there's a lot of years of development between these two bikes, and you can feel it in a lot of ways, but they're both really, really special. And it's just incredible that you can buy bikes like this, for the lucky few.