A £1K+ service isnt unheard of,Ive paid for one!.Parts can take months to arrive.I once bought a new 996,rode home 20miles,dropped off the paperwork and...wouldnt start,relay had gone.Broke down on a couple more occasions,once after taking it out of the van for a trackday.But other Ducatis Ive had have been faultless(almost).After selling a 888,had no intention of buying another Ducati.Suzuki GSXR converted me,fantastic machine.Service costs,parts arrive in days!,amazing.But...there was a 888 for sale locally,good price.Its now in my garage,there a hard habit to break.

Isn't it funny how you never hear anyone compare their bikes to anything else other than Ducatis. And the worse snobs on the road for not nodding back are Hardley riders.

You mean that you thought that you would get smogged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:lol:

Modesty forbids any detailed response to this question ;)

Who on Earth doesn't know what a Ducati is? Whatever are they like, oop-north?
:lol:

I based my comments about IL4's based on my experience of them 5 or 6 years ago......now having ridden and owned albeit for a short time a modern litre IL4 jap bike i can honestly say they have mooved on..in a word AWESOME..........

Which is better ! neither they both have something to offer, both can be lazy on the power and both can be ridden hard to feel the passion and the rewards for getting in the zone.!

Right now the R1 is the bike for me and im looooving it.......just waiting for ducati to inspire me again............

Still got 2 dukes tucked up in the shed so im not without my v-twin fix.!....but unless you have ridden a litre modern jap bike save the bland n boring comments huh..i cant hear you over the induction roar.....

Phil

No, for me it seems more (but not all) Harley and Goldwing riders need to remove their heads from their bottoms, I grit my teeth whenever I nod to those 2, whether it's on my st4s or my bmw, you always get the same response: you don't exist.

I often feel that with a Ducati, you are riding the way the bike wants you to ride it. It's a brilliant experience, but you are limited somehow by the bike's own idiosyncrasies, eg. the tendancy towards slow steering (although the stability at high speeding is a fantastic feeling).

Jap IL4's are perhaps more of a blank canvas - the ride may be neutral to the point of blandness, but that leaves you free to employ your own techniques and desires. The only drawback to them that I can see is the need to keep the engine on the boil, but maybe that's no longer true of litre IL4s. I haven't ridden a modern Jap IL4, I'm basing my opinion on my experiences in the early-mid 90's.

Depends on what Jap IL4 you ride Loz - the Fireblade needed to be revved hard, the R1 had a little more mid range and was smoother, the ZX10 was just mental at the tope end but the GSXR is the daddy, loads of torque and a huge hit at 9000rpm.

Having been there I am happiest on my 996 - that's enough real world power, and to be honest, there's not a lot in it when riding on the road between most 1000cc engines up to 120mph, be they twins, triples or IL4s.

Henry, what you say about the GSXR1000 is echoed by the journos who write about it, and my own experiences of riding with people who own one. I've ridden a GSXR750, which I have to say, accelerates like a lunatic - BUT - it still needed to be kept on the boil. One day I'll try a Gixxer Thou and see for myself.

And you are spot on, the 996 is all you need and more for the real world - once you sort the over-gearing issue out ;) :devil:

Lets face it, if you ride something a bit different you're going to have somebody taking a pop at you; BUT when your helmet's on & its you, your Duke & the open road do you really care? I don't.