If you are of a certain age and into sport bikes from the 1980s and 1990s, the Ducati 851 has to be a standout. Bred for World Superbike racing, the 851 (and the 888 and 916 that followed) proved the performance of a well-engineered twin – even against the Japanese multis. With liquid cooling, fuel…
You’d think at a $55,000 ask, it wouldn’t be beyond the pale to ask for more than two photos of a motorcycle, but what do we know? And, be that as it may, most motorcycles are not the 1990 Ducati 851 SP2, a rare-as-rocking-horse-poo repli-racer from Ducati’s renaissance as a superbike racing brand. 1990 Ducati…
If Hunter S. Thompson, whose vocation was more or less using heavy drugs and shooting things, was so scared of the Ducati 900SS/SP that he wrote more of a cautionary tale than a review, it is truly hard to imagine the bone-deep terror a Ducati 851 must inspire on the street. With 15 or so…
Update 4.27.2019: Sold in just two days to an RSBFS reader. Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc The Ducati 851 is the father of modern Ducatis, from the world-changing 916 to the astonishing Panigale V4R. Without this boxy, lithe very red machine, those bikes would not be. The 851 arrived in 1987, with a very…
I’m not sure you can overstate the importance of the Ducati 851 to the Italian brand’s position at the top of motorcycling’s desirability food chain. Get past the literally and figuratively square headlight — the steel-framed 1983 dad glasses of illumination — and everything else is focused, lithe Italic sin. The 851 took a pokey,…
The Ducati 916 is a bike that should need no introduction on these pages. The immortal, evolutionary offspring of the 851/888, the 916 offers every bit of performance that the evocative design implies. And while time has a tendency to mute the claims and hyperboles of an era, this model continues to represent itself well.…
The Ducati 851 is a long-standing icon in the sport bike world. Leading the charge to Ducati’s dominant run of WSBK titles, the 851 was as successful on the showroom/street as it was on the track. Simultaneously introducing liquid cooling, fuel injection and four valve desmo heads, the 851 was both the leading edge of…
Throughout the history of the motorcycle, there have been many attempts to develop a superior suspension system, and the hub-center steered Tesi or “Thesis” was Bimota’s attempt to radically alter the sportbike landscape and do something completely new, a shocking move for such a tiny company. The ubiquitous telescopic forks have a number of disadvantages,…