Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128195
(Left) Is that am IMac on the dash? No, it's just the 749's new instrument cluster. It's pretty high tech looking, though. (Left) The single underthe-seat rear exhaust canister is not RIDING THE 749 only aerodynamic, but it has two liters more We showed up at the track for the riding portion of the introduction, and the rain was literally blowing horizontally, and it was freeZing cold in the unheated pit-row garages. After waiting for the track to dry out, we finally got the chance to go out and take a spin. Riding the bike, on a wet racetrack that I'd never been to before, was going to be a trial by fire (a potential $14,000 fire). The Almeria track is really tricky, as our special guest and track tour guide, Factory Ducati World Superb ike rider Ruben Xaus, explained as we cut our first laps of the day in the tour bus. If there is one thing that the Almeria track demands, it's front-end feel from the chassis. The circuit has a few fast blind corners that reminded me of some of the turns at Laguna Seca. It also has a section that is determined to coerce the rider into giving the bike more throttle - which can only result in running dangerously wide on the off-camber exit. The track also demands that a bike be flicked from side to side very quickly. The old 748 was rock solid and stable, but you'd be a fool to call it nimble. The first session was only useful for figuring out which way the turns went, but the second session was capacity than the 748's exhaust. (Right) The bike on the top Is the 749 with the biposto seat, and the bike on the bottom Is the 7495 which only comes in the monoposto version. southern Mediterranean coast. The area around Almeria is desert, very much like, well, Southern California. If you're a fan of Clint Eastwood's early spaghetti westerns, such as The Good The Bad and The Ugly, High Plains Drifter, etc., you might be (Left) The ride height will no longer be altered when you adjust the chain because of the horizontal chain adjusters. Also note the new wheels. Nice, eh? time. Sure, it would have been nice if Massimo Tamburini had penned the new bike, but you can't have everything. As for me, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm really starting to develop a fondness for the 749 and the 999. I had the opportunity to ride the 999 a few weeks prior to the 749's introduction and had already logged some serious miles on it. I was already in love with that bike and, in particular, its excellent chassis. Needless to say, I was excited to sample Ducati's all-new middleweight V-twin sportbike. The 749, unlike the 999, was completely redesigned from the ground up for 2003. While the 999 has basically the same motor as the 998 did last year, the 749 receives a brand new baby Testastretta powerplant this year. The introduction of the 749 was to take piace in Almeria, Spain, on the interested to know that some of them were filmed near Almeria. Recall those films, and you might think that such a barren desert wasteland like this isn't likely to get a lot of rain, right? We were even told that it never, ever rains at the actual Almeria racetrack. What a farce that turned out to be. Bambino Teslaslrella The 749 engine is completely new for 2003. It's now a Testastretta design like its big bra' the 999. "Testastretta' loosely translates to "compact head," and the key element that allows the head to be compact is the reduction of the induded valve angle. The included valve angle (the angle between the intake and exhaust valves from cylinder center) has been reduced from 40 degrees to 27 degrees. This helps not only to reduce the physical size of the head, but to make the combustion chamber much more compact and efficient and to allow Ducati to increase the compression ratio from 11.5:1 to 11.7: 1. In addition, this makes space for larger intake and exhaust valves: The intake valves were increased from 33mm to 37mm, and the exhaust valves were increased from 29mm to 30.5mm. One of the other keys to making the Testastretta heads more compact and efficient is the elimination of the ball bearings that supported the camshafts; these have been replaced with plain bearings. which should also improve reliability by elimination of these additional moving parts. Now, all of this is great for the efficiency of the heads, but it would all be in vain if the motor wasn't able to rev higher. So the motor is now a short stroke design. The bore has been increased to 90mm, up from 88mm on the 748, while the stroke has been reduced from 61 .5mm to 58.8mm. This allows the pistons to run at a lower speed, which in tum allows a higher redline. and that equals more horsepower. The airbox has been completely redesigned as well and now has more volume than the old version. It also has redesigned seals for better efficiency and no longer uses the top of the tank as a seal. One of the most controversial elements on the 749 has to be the new exhaust system, but it was designed first and foremost to perform. Not only does it meet new noise and exhaust emissions standards, it still provides the efficiency that a high·performance engine needs to breathe by having almost two liters more volume. One of the problems that the "L" twin Ducati motor creates is that the header pipes end up being different lengths, which isn't a good thing for efficiency. The solution was to make the header pipes different diameters to equalize the backpressure and flow. The longer front cylinder header pipe starts out at 45mm then swells to 55mm aft of the inline catalytic converter. The shorter rear cyJjnder header is a constant 45mm. and the catalyzer for that pipe resides inside the under·the-seat canister. cucle n e _ 50 • JANUARY 8, 2003 23