GSX1400 Owners .org

I had a ride on a Ducati Streetfighter V4s yesterday, and at over £23k I was expecting something special.  Sitting on the bike it felt a bit like my 1200 Monster, seating position and basic layout felt quite familiar.  The new TFT had all the usual stuff with a large round tacho on the right side with mode and gear position in the centre.  To the left a box with speed in it and below another box for menu navigation, to the bottom right a box with all the adjustable settings  in it, abs, traction, anti wheelie etc all of which could all be adjusted to suit.  Handlebars were conventional Ducati, left side had mode and menu selector for adjusting various parameters and right had start stop and heated grips.  Fit and finish of all parts were excellent apart from the side stand, it looked like it had been designed and fitted before anyone realised they could not operate it while sitting on the bike so they just drilled it and chucked in a long bolt, looked crap.  Starting the bike was the first surprise, the noise was excellent, so loud I thought it must have been an aftermarket can but it was the standard one, how are they getting away with this?

Out on the road the bike behaved very well in traffic, in road mode it just rode along nicely but out of traffic I got my second surprise, this bike is geared like a 600, it turns 6000 rpm at 75 mph.  I like big bikes so I don't need to rev the tits off them to get along the road so that came as a bit of a disappointment not helped by the roll on, which was very tame, three of my other bikes would have easily left it for dead in roll on test at 4 - 5 k.  While riding at a fixed throttle doing 50 - 60 mph the bike started to hunt a bit so the fuelling isn't quite right either.  However switching to sport mode ironed all these problems out, it tightens up the throttle response and suspension damping and opens up another 40bhp, now it was the bike I was expecting with plenty of grunt throughout the rev range.  All the controls were as you expect from Ducati, clutch was smooth, brakes were excellent as was handling and suspension but there is a little bit vibration that can be felt through the bike.  I even liked the quick shifter which worked seamlessly unless I forgot and dipped the throttle myself (old habits die hard).  Gearbox was very slick with equal pressure going up and down the box, even block changes were smooth.

So what's my verdict, well it's no doubt a great bike, looks really good apart from the wings which look stupid to me at least.  It rides brilliantly but revs way too high for me, and the sound, oooh, it's fan bloody tastic.  There is a flapper valve in the exhaust which shuts it up below 3000 rpm so not everyone can share, but above 3k it opens up to shout at everyone, lovely.  For your £23+ k you actually get two bikes in one, in road mode it behaves like a 600 with poor roll on at low revs (what I call normal revs) but it sport mode (the bottom 5k revs and compressed on the tacho) it pulls like a train.  I would imagine that at double figure revs it would be a proper weapon but I have way too much mechanical sympathy to ride any bike at the red line (14000 in this case).  It would be mental in race mode.  Unlike most bikes switching modes does make a significant difference, I didn't try rain mode.  If it revved like a 1100 should I would certainly consider buying one but in it current form I would not.

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