Yeah thanks. That was a great assesment. Great feedback!
Thanks guys for the appreciation.
I suppose for Duck Off I could have pointed out that the S4Rs is essentially the ultimate upgrade for the 620 Dark. It is not much more than a 620 into which someone has shoehorned a late 999s engine, suspension, wheels and brakes. With all the weirdness and practical shortcomings that implies. And a certain quantity of excitement.
Was there a frame upgrade? I'm not that familiar with the evolution of the smaller Monsters. Ducati said they added a bit of bracing to the steering head for the Testa Monsters compared with the pre-Testa S4R, but IIRC the stiffness rose only 5 per cent.
On the cammy engine thing, it has occurred to me since my previous post that one of the fun ways this works is that the faster you go, the harder the engine seems to pull. If you look at Brad Black's power and torque curves for the DP kitted S4Rs, link
here, max torque doesn't arrive until nearly 8K and it doesn't start to fall off much until after 9K. So as you run up to 8K, the motor keeps getting more and more efficient in the way it uses the mixture, and it holds that efficiency until 9 as the revs rise. The effect on the road is that you keep getting more than you asked for as you open the throttle. It is kind of intoxicating.
And what you get even in the soft bit under 5500 is pretty good anyway. I don't ride that much with other people any more and where I live now there aren't any of the mountain roads I used to love charging through in good company. If I still did those things, then maybe I'd use more of the rev range. But for riding highways and good sweeping narrow country roads solo at speeds mainly under 100mph, I find myself returning from an 800-mile long weekend having never revved the bike past 8K, and not often past 7. Around 7 she is starting to get properly onto the cam and by then your overtake is happening pretty effectively.
So the S4Rs is a very hopped up 620 and the 1200 Monster I imagine is Ducati's attempt to consolidate that experience and make more sense of it. Which inevitably will mean losing some of the nonsense.
More I can't say without having ridden a 1200. I've an idea I might like it, but not enough to be swapping. OTOH if I was shopping for a new bike now and both were available new at around the same price, the 1200 on paper at least would match my need to carry a pillion much more helpfully than the S4Rs.
A couple of minor differences that could be relevant:
- the pillion pegs on the S/R Monsters are pretty flimsy. I have a custom dual seat but ask my pillion to mount using the rider peg, because I doubt the pillion peg would stand up to that long term. Well, the peg would but perhaps not the mount. The 1200's rear peg mountings seem much more robust.
- the 1200 "s" uses a bigger diameter fork tube, 48mm vs 43 on the S4Rs. I imagine that would give a less flexy response to a tweak on the 'bars. The S4Rs feels pretty noodly, IMO, when you haul hard on the 'bars at high speed. The standard 1200 sticks with the 43mm fork tubes.
Oh, and is the S4Rs the greatest? As observed above, it depends a lot on what you are looking for. Sure, it's the quickest, and the OEM Ohlins fork is genuinely a good thing. The shock not so much in stock form. And I certainly get it that the air-cooled versions have a charm and real-world usability and thriftiness that the 8V models can't approach.
