| Hello mate and welcome to the board.
Well, the ST range obviously doesn't have the glamour of the Ducati superbike range and even owners of them like me, tend not to be wild about the looks of them, even as an owner, I don't think the top fairing and headlight do the ST any favours. Having said that, beauty is in the eye of the beholder so if you love the looks, fair play to you.
I have an ST2 and they are vastly underated bikes. In this instance having a budget of 3K should get you a nice one, and just about the right age. If you go for a bike up to 2001, you'll get one with fully adjustable suspension all round. Later bikes seemed to come with the front suspension that currently graces the ST3 and is only adjustable for preload.
ST's in general are underated, but they handle superbly. They are a very easy bike to ride when you just want to trundle along. Although like all Dukes the clutch is heavy and becomes hard work through town sometimes (until you build your forearm muscles and tendons up anyway), they've got a low centre of gravity and riding at town speeds and in traffic is a doddle. They've got a comfortable riding position and don't put any strain on your wrists, the footpegs are nicely placed with a good compromise between ground clearance and comfort. When you want to up the pace a bit, you'll find that the chassis is excellent. The brembo brakes are not the latest fashionable radial kid on the block but they're pretty damn good, they give you really progressive braking and provide more than adequate stopping power even used hard all day on the track. Like most Dukes the handling characteristics are that they don't flick turn into corners as quickly as some bikes (although the leverage of the wider bars makes the steering nice and light) but when they're cranked over into a bend they are superbly stable. All the ST's are on the sporting side of the Sport/Tourer equation and their handling is good enough to surprise many full on sports bikes.
The chassis on the ST2 and ST4 is identical, if you go to the ST4S you get Titanium Nitrided forks, Ohlins rear suspension and an alloy swingarm plus lighter wheels, oh, and of course on the 4S you get a 996 motor punching out about 120-ish Bhp (a lot of bike for the money, but probably not yet available for £3K).
So ST2 or ST4? The difference is that the 2 has a water cooled two valve per cylinder motor derived from the SS range, the 4 has a four valve per cylinder motor from the 916. In terms of horsepower, they pan out at Ducati quoted figures of 83 Bhp (ST2) and 105 Bhp (ST4). These figures don't really tell the full story though, the two valver has terrific low down torque and will let you really fire it out of corners on a wave of smooth predictable power. The ST4 will do that as well, of course, but it starts to produce it's extra power higher up in the rev range.
On the road, what the ST2 will give you is a bike that will keep up with almost anyone except for mentalists. I have never been left behind on rideouts, and it surprises a lot of people on more exotic Dukes. I find that I can keep up with 748's quite well, 996's, 999's and the like obviously pull away on the straight bits, but not enough to disappear. I'm not attributing this to being a riding god, my mate Glyn also has an ST2 and we're always in touch on the Beds/Herts/Cambs regional DSC rideouts. We've both done trackdays with this club as well. The last time out I was in the fast group and wasn't embarrassed by lack of pace. Sure I got overtaken, but I also did a bit of overtaking. If Glyn had been there he would've been as well, 'cos he's probably just a tad quicker than me ('cos he's young and foolish).
Then of course, when the time comes for a bit more relaxed riding, you can just load the panniers up (it's worth trying to find an ST with the optional hard luggage 'cos if you want it later it'll be expensive) and take off for some touring with a pillion on the back. The pannier carriers are a bit ugly, but you can take them off in about 20 minutes (and on again in the same amount of time) if they bother you. At sedate touring speeds you'll get something like 180 miles to the tankful (about 130 if you're wringing it's neck round the lanes)
All in all the ST2 is a vastly underated bike.
If you do want to stretch to an ST4, they will be a little more expensive to buy, but they'll also cost a little more to insure and maintain as well. The four valve per cylinder engine is a little more complex with subsequently higher servicing costs. Servicing quirks on both bikes comes down to making sure that the cambelts are changed regularly, although Ducati say change them every 12K, most people do them at every service (6K intervals) 'cos they don't really cost that much in the scheme of a service and the consequences of having a belt snap are potentially dire with valves hitting pistons and nasty stuff like that. My personal opinion is that the belt change thing is a bit of a hangover from earlier days, now that the belts are reinforced with kevlar you don't seem to hear any horror stories, but I guess people (myself included) seem to err on the cautious side. As far as servicing goes, you need to make sure that any Duke you buy has a full service history, but don't worry unduly about high mileage. In many ways a higher mileage bike that has been well maintained is a better proposition than one which has been bought on a whim and spends most of it's life in the shed, back to the cambelts for a moment, if the bike spends a long time unused the belt can develop a sort of kink where it's been sat wrapped around the pulleys (they're quite a small radius) and that can give you trouble, along with the fact that an unused bike will sit there gentle perishing away instead of getting out there on the road doing what it was designed for.
2 or 4 you can't go wrong, great bikes
[Edited on 25-10-2004 by Jools]  | 
25-Oct-2004, 09:37 
Monty
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