Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 4 JANUARY 30, 2018 P73 the sky and you tuck as best you can behind the rather low angled screen. CONTROLLING THE PUNCH The electronics permeate every being of this bike, but none more so than in the acceleration phase. Pinning the throttle will have you engage the traction, wheelie and slide control, as well as activating the electronic steering damper and Ohlins Smart EC 2.0 suspen- sion (which, to be fair, is always working, unless you switch to manual mode). While not remarkable in that other machines have similar systems, it's amazing how well these systems are managed by the Bosch Inertial Measurement Unit and the feeling of precision and control at the twist grip and eventu- ally, the rear tire. The machine is constantly work- ing beneath you, changing and altering itself to ensure you're al- ways in the optimal chassis setting to get yourself around the track as fast as you can make it go. The traction and wheelie control systems are especially impres- sive. Even when I was deliberately riding like a bit of a dick and trying to fool the system by slamming the throttle wide open down the front straight, there'd be nary a cough or splutter from the motor as the ignition was gently cut, the power dumbed down slightly but drive still forceful enough to make it feel like I was not being slowed down in the slightest. That, and the front wheel was hovering just a few inches off the deck to make me feel like a proper MotoGP badass when the truth is so, so far from that. It's a similar story under brakes, as the counter-rotating crank GOLDEN LEGS If it's a special Ducati, it's gotta have Ohlins. The V4S and the Speciale are both graced with the new Ohlins Smart EC 2.0 system that operates and controls the action of the NIX30 fork and TTX36 rear shock. The new system works off what Ohlins call their new Objective Based Tuning Interface, which is basically a funny way of saying the system understands how you ride and compensates for it. For example, if you're riding hard, it knows to put everything on the stiff side for damping rates by taking into account factors like lean angle, throttle position, gear position and chassis pitch. Being an electrical system, you won't be changing your settings with clickers and screwdrivers. Ohlins believes the best way to get optimal suspension performance is to change how we look at adjusting it. So instead of compression, rebound and preload, we now change the system according to what we feel is the problem. If you want better braking balance, go into the braking area of the system and adjust accordingly. The same for mid-corner performance and acceleration. This is not an entirely new way of looking at suspension adjustment as this is the second generation of Ohlins' electronic suspension, but it does make sense and will likely make it less intimidating for people to really explore what their suspension can do. Hey, if you screw up your settings, you can just press a button and the system will return to factory settings. Should you want to switch entirely to manual mode, you can vary compression and rebound as you would on a traditional suspension setup. (L-R) Slightly reworked compared to the 1299, the Panigale V4S's snout is still somewhat mean. Is that not one of the sexiest back-ends you've ever seen? In the nude: There's more chassis than what's on the monocoque design with the new Front Frame, but the motor is still an integral part of the chassis design.

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