Well I had no idea I was the first to get one, thats very cool.
So the bike itself is amazing and below are just a few of my thoughts so far. I am by no means an expert or professional racer but I have been riding for quite a while and hope I can offer some help to those of you that are interested.
Looks
Ill keep this short as you will have sen the pictures by now. When you actually see one in the flesh the styling is simply stunning and seems a natural progression from the 1299 and 959. As you can see the fairing and tank have a lot more shape to them and really help give it a little more depth. They now run full LED lights and the all new instrument cluster is a joy to use, its simple but effective(Except the bluetooth which I cant even find), showing you all the info you could want, most of the rider aids can be adjusted on the fly using the new jogger buttons and are easy to tweek while riding.
Engine
I dont really know what to say other than wow. When you start her up you can tell its not a conventional V-twin but the guys at Ducati have clearly gone to a lot of effort to make it sound Ducati-ish, it still has that slight offbeat rhythm to it and it sounds totally different to my RSV4.
Where the 1299 was a sledge hammer the V4 is a surgical scalpel, it pulls well from down low building to huge power above about 8000rpm when it starts to pulls like a train until you reach warp speeds. Depending on how you setup your electronic aids the front wheel will keep trying to lift well into 4th gear without much effort.
Where it really shines however is how the power is delivered, it is silky smooth and just allows you to feed it on through corners with total confidence leaving most of your friends a long way behind you.
I had the opportunity to pit it against a BMW HP4 this evening and running in Sport mode with power set to medium it was still able to pull away all be it not by much, I will have a rematch in Race mode and high power soon.
Handling/Chassis
In my opinion this is the best part of the bike, my first thought when I hopped on it was how light it feels and how it just falls into corners. Honestly it just feels like a 600, as you tip it in there is no need for any counter-steering you just shift your weight slightly and its there. As you drive it through the corners the Ohlins give you so much feedback, and feel so well planted, that even on my first ride I was carrying more speed though my favourite corners than on the Aprilia.
I will get it out on the track in the coming weeks and ill let you know how it goes.
The best advice I can give anyone, is to find a dealer with one as a demo and go try it for yourself. Just dont take your cheque book with you because I can promise you will want one when you get back.
If you have any questions or want pictures/videos of anything just let me know.
