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This is the first time I've ridden a bike with a true slipper clutch. Ducati says that the design of their APTC clutch allows both for the slipper action and for the reduced pull at the handlebar lever. In the real world, the major benefit of a slipper clutch is that, if you're a bit of a zombie at the controls and are too ham-fisted with a downshift, then the clutch saves your bacon and doesn't engage until the engine and rear wheel speeds are close enough in harmony with each other for engagement to occur with little or no drama.

Having had rear-wheel lockups due to ham-fisted gear changes in the past, it took a little daring on my part to try it out. If you listen to the Ducati Austin Superbikes at the race track, you'll soon become confident that Ducati knows what they're doing when it comes to slipper clutches. Listen to Neil Hodgson come into a corner and you'll hear him blip the throttle to match the engine revs to wheel speed as he changes down through the gearbox. However, listen to Eric Bostrom's approach and you'll hear no blipping at all as he takes full advantage of the bike's slipper clutch.

Once you go black... image by tim huntington

Taking Eric's approach to heart, I deliberately tried what I would classify as a ham-fisted downshift — one that would have typically resulted in a locked up rear wheel (and at faster speeds necessitated an underwear change, too). Pull in the clutch at around 5K rpm, knock it down a gear and let go of the clutch lever. The result is that nothing happens until the clutch can engage without drama. Sometimes it feels like up to a second later as the rear wheel's speed matches the engine's speed. Disconcerting at first, it feels like a false neutral, but once you realize what's going on, it's very impressive. In regular riding, the main benefit is felt during the change from 2nd to 1st when a mismatch in engine and wheel speed is easiest to achieve.

The bike has a close-ratio six-speed gearbox. I found myself using only the first five gears for 95% of the time I was on the bike. Sixth gear is high enough that you need to be cruising around 70-75mph before it makes any sense. I hit a couple of false neutrals during the test, but in the vast majority of cases, the gearbox was sweet to use, and finding the real neutral at a stop was always easy.

With real power only kicking in at around 4K rpm, the engine is weak below 3.5K. It's not surprising when accelerating (you just realize you're not in the right gear when opening the throttle doesn't really do anything), but if you're slowing down with the revs below 3.5K rpm, it feels like you have all the engine braking of a two-stroke engine. However, it's easy to adjust to just by using the excellent brakes a bit more.

The bike I had was black with a tangerine red (Ducati's name for the dark-orange color) stripe running down the bike. Other color schemes available are red with a white stripe, acid yellow (Ducati's name for yellow) with a black stripe and the "dark" option of flat black without the surprisingly effective headlight cowl. The headlight cowl does shake and shimmy around in the airflow when you're riding. As far as protection goes, in colder air, it was apparent that the wind was hitting me no lower than the upper chest, and my head was high enough above the edge of the deflected air to be out of any turbulence.

The cowl houses the two main gauges and the idiot lights image by tim huntington

Inside that cowl are the bike's instruments (the ignition lock is at the front of the gas tank). There's a speedo on the left and a tachometer on the right, with a bunch of bright idiot lights in between them. When you turn the key to the on position, the needles on the speedo and tach sweep through their range of motion, and all the idiot lights illuminate until the needles have returned to their starting positions. There are two LCD gauges, one in the bottom of the speedometer and one in the bottom of the tachometer. The speedometer's LCD has two modes — tripmeter and odometer. The tachometer's LCD has two modes, too — oil temperature and clock. There are little buttons next to both dials to switch mode on each. The buttons are big enough to easily use on the move with gloved hands.

There is one nit that I have to pick. When you turn on the bike, the trip/odometer always shows the odometer, and the temp/clock gauge always shows the temp. It would be nice if those two gauges remembered what they were last set to and showed that function again. The left-hand LCD will also change its initial display when it's time for bike maintenance. This maintenance message ("NAint" is what it looks like on the LCD) is based on mileage and kicks in when your mileage passes the next service milestone. It remains on for about 10 seconds after the key is turned when you turn on the bike, then reverts to the odometer reading.

Another sixty miles of this before another town. No, kids, we're not there yet. So please be quiet while dad strafes. image by tim huntington

Not surprisingly, fuel economy varied according to the type of riding — from a low of 41mpg on the goat trails where there was lots of acceleration and braking in the lower gears to a high of 50 mpg on a 50-65mph cruise up and down Highway 1. Over the entire duration of the test, the bike returned an average of 43 mpg. The low-fuel idiot light (with corresponding FUEL message flashing on the rev counter's LCD screen) starts to glow orange when just over 2.5 gallons of gas have been consumed from the tank's 4.4-gallon capacity. On the goat trails, this was barely over 100 miles into the ride.

The Nor Cal Roads

We're spoilt for choice when it comes to cool roads to test bikes on around here. Some of the roads that the Ducati was tested over are listed below (along with a Google Maps link so you can see where they are). 1. Alpine Road, home of the 15mph gravel strewn hairpins (Google link). 2. The world famous Pacific Coast Highway, also known as Highway 1. Here, the map link centers around the area of the Bixby Bridge (Google link). Unfortunately, even on the satellite view, you can't see the masses of rental Mustang convertibles cruising down the road. Ride this road for the magnificent scenery. 3. Once over the top of Mount Hamilton, it's a good long way with no towns until you get to Livermore (Google link). San Antonio Valley Road linking to (local biker favorite) Mines Road gives you miles of traffic free (during the week) fun roads to enjoy.

The final decent-sized ride I took on the bike was around 120 miles, and the trip required the same sorts of riding you'll typically encounter on the road. It was an opportunity to see if my initial impressions of the bike on previous rides still held true. The ride took in a few miles of concrete-slab freeway, around 20 miles of low-speed tight and twisty roads up to the top of a 4000-foot mountain, and then down the other side for another 60 or 70 miles of really fun riding on a reasonably well-surfaced empty road that twisted its way through a few canyons eventually depositing me in a small town where getting lost resulted in more in-town riding than I had planned. Another country road (this time with traffic) and a little more freeway got me back to my starting place. The ride reinforced how all-around capable the Monster S2R is on all types of roads, and just how much fun it is when the roads get curvy.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this bike as much as I did. It was a sad day when I had to hand it back to Ducati. I would have liked a more powerful motor, but I certainly didn't NEED more power and when you can hear it, that V-twin rumble is intoxicating. If you're in the market for a real-world road bike, don't let the air-cooled two-valve motor and two-piston calipers fool you. The S2R is a very modern bike — easy and monster-fun to ride.

Specifications