It doesn’t take long to be intimidated by the outrageous Desmosedici RR. If the stratospheric $72.5K price tag doesn’t get you, the menacing mechanical cacophony upon start-up will. Observers are sucker-punched straight into the gut, and the beautiful racket portends an experience unlike any production streetbike in the world.
It’s quite incredible that a manufacturer has offered such a repli-racer to the public. The D16RR is literally a MotoGP bike built for the street. And not those scrawny 800cc prototype racers currently on the grids – we’re talking the big-gun near-liter-sized versions. As such, the RR carries a compact 989cc V-Four engine inside a version of Ducati’s trademark tubular-steel trellis frames.
The engine itself is a jewel. It features the same bore and stroke measurements (86.0mm x 42.56mm) as those on Ducati’s 2006 racebike, the D16GP6. It uses the “Twin-Pulse” firing order in which the crankpins are offset by 70 degrees (cylinders fire at 0°, 90°, 290° and 380°) to generate what Ducati terms as “soft pulse timing.”
No soft pulses are felt from the D16’s saddle – this thing snorts and sprints around a racetrack like a rampaging demon, as we found out during a few lapping sessions at Willow Springs Raceway.
Our test unit was equipped with the race ECU and exhaust system included with each Desmosedici, a no-brainer swap for the standard street exhaust. So equipped, it is said to achieve the magic 200-horsepower mark at 13,800 rpm when measured at the crankshaft. As for rear-wheel power numbers, those who have had it on a Dynojet dyno say it’s pushing nearly 180 hp. Peak crankshaft torque of 85.3 ft-lbs arrives way up at 10,500 rpm.
Moto Bling When a motorcycle has a retail price that compares unfavorably with a rural home in Iowa, it makes one wonder why it costs so much. Here’s a partial list of the many high-end components on the luscious Desmosedici RR.
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