Ducati 899 Panigale

We're more than aware that we are lucky enough to travel all over the world riding lots of shiny new bikes. We're also more than aware that there's a fair few of you out there that can't afford them. I personally can't afford them either. So what we've committed to this year is whenever we ride a new bike, we'll take a look back at the early or cheaper or used versions of those new bikes. This time, it's this 899 Panigale. I was on the press launch of this very bike at Imelur in 2014, lashed it down with rain. It pretty much had to cancel the launch. So my riding impression of it comes from road tests and other stuff that I've done in between then and now. So we'll give a quick overview of what you get for your money. And then we'll talk about some of the issues that people have had with this bike in the four years that it's been on the scene. The first talking point that we should cover is the amount of tech this bike has. Yeah, it's a few years old, but it was absolutely on trend a couple of years ago. So you get engine brake control, you get multiple traction control, you get ABS. You can access all of those things with the buttons on the bars. Make this bike perfect for you. It's got a lot of brakes. It's a Brembo monoblock caliper. It's not the M40 or the M50 Coupled with a Showa BPF fork adjustable up here, there is no electronic trickery. But again, it's a simple system. I'm looking at it now. It's telling me exactly where I need to adjust what with screwdrivers. Very, very easy to use and very easy to set up and personalize for you. One thing that's interesting for me four years down the line is when I first looked at this shock, I didn't scoff at it, but I laughed at the fact that this side mounted shock would probably be the first thing touch down and would be really expensive to replace. And I was completely wrong and nobody's really highlighted the fact that these shocks cost loads of money to replace because they don'touch down when you crash unless you absolutely can't wheel the thing, at which point you've written it off So looking at the rider view, I'm looking at an LCD dash. It's got all of the software adjustability and you can see everything that's going on in there. It's just not that sexy TFT stuff that all the new bikes have got. Thinking back to when this bike was brand new and just came out, the biggest thing and the biggest change that they made between the outgoing 848 and this incoming 899 was the double-sided swing arm at the back. But it was a little bit of an opinion splitter. At the time everybody was saying it's a super bike from Joukatti. Where's the single-sided swing arm? My conversations that I had with the engineering team and the guys that built this bike, what they said and the reason why they did that, aside from the dynamic capability that they were looking for, with it was they were trying to appeal to Japanese sports bike fans. They were trying to tempt guys from the 600 market that they could see was dying. Who knew that would happen? So the 899 is actually an 898. The motor is the L-Twin based on 1199 technology. It has a vacuarel, cast clutch covers, s You've got 148 horsepower. You've got 148 horsepower. We don't really need to say much more. It'still a boatload of power. It's everything that you need on road and track. So one of the key points that most of the owners we spoke to highlighted was the issue with sound and track days, even with the stock exhausts. They're under slung. The sound bounces straight out of that pretty pipe down there, straight off the floor and amplifies the noise that the bike makes. Some of these quiet track days, 98 decibel ones, you might struggle even with the stock pipes. One of the issues you won't have is having to put up with ugly pipes. As it is, this looks stunning. The next thing owners wanted to highlight was the issue with the pegs. It's a off-the-shelf part from Gikatti. So that means it will probably come from a multi-strada or a monster. I know that in the end with the 848 that I ran that had the same designer pegs that I ended up taking a file to these because in the wet they're You just can't really get any grip on them. Your feet slip off everywhere. In terms of reliability, there's nothing really to worry about. Sure, these bikes are only a few years old and there aren'that many examples out there that will have done sky-high miles yet. The dealers that we spoke to suggested that it's best to steer away from pimped-up versions. Aftermarket clutches, aftermarket toots. If it's been massively modified, it means one of two things. Either the owner has crashed it and they're trying to hide what's wrong with the bike with expensive toot to blind you, or somebody's just wasted a load of money that didn't need spending. This bike is perfect as it is. Another issue that was highlighted to us is the b When these bikes fall over in your garage, typically what happens is they take a knock, the b One of my good friends is actually about to trade his 899 Panigallian for a multi-strada based simply on the fact that he's doing more miles two up now than he is on his own. This isn't doing him any favours. Make sure if you are planning on taking a pillion, you take them for the test ride that you go on. The distance between here and here is pretty small, as is the perch that you'll be sticking them on while you're trying to be some kind of loony up here. So as it stands, there are no real high mileage skeletons in the closet with the 899 Palligalli. It's been around for four years. We've looked at examples at u00a38,500. This one's u00a38,999. From the good people at the motorcycle centre down here in Lingfield, to getting access into the Panigalli Club, it's got super-quadro written on it. It looks amazing. To be fair, your friends are going to be really hard pushed to tell the difference between this entry-level 899 Panigalli and the all-sing and all-dancing V4 that Chris has just ridden in Valencia. It's beautiful, it's red, it's got all the right words in all the right places.