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Here is why it works:
My SV650S, a sportbike, is uncomfortable on my wrists. I need to sell it now. Hopefully to someone who will either love-it, or race-it.
My cruiser, a V-Star, allows me to sit comfortably for hours, but required a windscreen to do so.
My Ducati Monster has ergonomics that are similar to the Ducati Diavel. Anywhere between 45 MPH and 85 MPH provides enough air to literally hold-me-up for hours. I don’t feel like the wind is pushing me, and I don’t feel like I am doing pull-ups. It’s like how I feel sitting behind the windscreen of on my cruiser, even though it looks nothing like that.
The Monster actually works well for cruising, and the Diavel is like a torque-y, massive, Monster.
Journalists are always complaining about adventure bikes that don’t work-well off-road, but naked bikes, and on-road adventure bikes, give the comfort that an aging sportbike rider, who doesn’t want a traditional cruiser, needs. They actually work quite well for cruising.
The Diavel is like nothing out there, but is closest to a V-Max, or Triumph Rocket III, and many folks call those ‘cruisers’, so it fits.
More? Here’s what I think about every motorcycle that I have ever ridden.
This is the controversial Ducati Diavel. The image is by http://www.flickr.com/photos/desmodex/ and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
Here’s my SV650S ABS. We are only riding in the parking lot; Gershwin’s helmet isn’t DOT approved.
My V-Star, with windscreen, after a long ride to Memphis TN.
My Ducati Monster is like a miniature Diavel. Here it is with the world’s largest frame sliders.
( About the Diavel) . Jamie Elvidge writes in the July issue of Cycle World (page 77) ” In tight walking -speed maneuvers, the Ducati can also feel a bit top-sided, while the longer Guzzi, with its lower center of Gravity & heavier steering, proves easier to usher”. What does this mean? A light weight , 500 pound bike with a 30 inch seat height is twitchy in a parking lot? My Diavel ( red with white stripe) has been on order for seven months as of this writing. I have not had any riding experiences with Ducati bikes.
My only real Ducati experience is with our Monster. That bike fills so many roles.
I took some great photos of a guy riding his Diavel at high speeds on a very technical road-racing course for a track day. (His armor had a Harley Owner’s Group patch on it.) The Diavel was a great bike for what he was using it for. The Harley Davidson XR1200, and maybe one of the Moto Guzzis, with a skilled rider, would have also worked well in that environment. So, while I don’t have experience with the Diavel per se, I do believe that it is a versatile motorcycle.
I can understand why you might be a little nervous about criticisms like that. You are taking a big risk by committing to a machine that you haven’t actually ridden, but I suspect that you will absolutely love that bike.
My Google-fu is not strong enough to find this quote, but one of the journalists in a very recent copy of either Cycle World or Motorcyclist, said that when they wrote about how poor a bike worked at parking lot speeds, the Editor (was it Marc Cook?) made a comment like, “They don’t engineer bikes for parking lot speeds.” It’s a negative comment that’s true for so many motorcycles that it’s probably not worth saying negatively, so moto-journalists write things like, “[It] sheds most of it’s 500 pounds once you get above a walking pace,” instead.
Heavy bikes don’t work very well in that environment, but the bikes that do work well in that environment, are probably not the bikes that you would want to use around 85mph-Dallas-Metroplex-mobile-phone-using-people either.
The older I get, the smaller I want my motorcycles to be. I have CFS, and that has destroyed my ability to ride anything substantial, so 250cc little bikes are looking really good these days: that or a BRP Spyder.
It is a well balanced bike and can be handled pretty good at high speeds too. I would definitely go with Ducati than Kawasaki.