HEAD OVER HEELS

ONE OF THOSE BIKES THAT FREEZES TIME. A QUICK LOOK-OVER EXTENDS TO A 30-MINUTE STARE

I’ve been testing bikes professionally for 25 years, and I still get a buzz from riding. But every so often, there’s a special day. I get excited, like a kid before Christmas, counting down the days with anticipation. It takes a special bike or trip to do this – and Ducati’s Panigale SP is just such a motorcycle. I first saw it earlier this year and have been waiting to get my hands on one ever since. And the loan period I landed number 29 SP coincided with a heatwave in the UK. Dry, warm and sticky roads plus a Ducati SP – Santa does exist.

Ducati has made ‘special’ iterations of its superbikes since the first SP version of the iconic 851. I rode the stunning, multi-winged Superleggera last year (AMCN Vol 70 No 04); with 165kW (221hp) and just 159kg it was a brilliant machine to ride around Mugello. But at $150,000 (plus on-road costs) it is also, for most of us, simply a poster bike: a dream designed to be as extreme as possible.

The Euro-5 complaint SP features some of the tech of the Superleggera, but with a more useable 1103cc V4 instead of the rev-happy 999cc race-derived Superleggera power unit. And despite a limited production run, prices start at a more affordable $51,890 (ride away) – if you can call that affordable.