When I traveled overseas to review the Panigale V4, Multistrada 1260 Enduro and Hypermotard 950, I asked one final question when interviewing the staff at Ducati Motor Holding: when will the Streetfighter V4 debut?
Of course the staff remained hush, but its arrival was inevitable. Various chatter appeared online about Ducati using the bike in this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), but nothing was confirmed.That changed Thursday when Ducati officially announced that the Streetfighter V4 will arrive in 2020. First, the bike will go through some serious testing with Carlin Dunne – who won the Heavyweight class at the “Race to the Clouds” in 2012 and again in 2018. In 2012, while piloting a Multistrada 1200 S Pikes Peak, Dunne was the first rider to complete the 12.42-mile course in less than 10 minutes (9:52.819).As with previous Streetfighter editions (848 and 1100), Ducati has stripped its sportbike – the Panigale V4 – of its fairings and fitted it with high and wide bars.Ducati says the prototype will race with a “pixelated” livery, designed by the Centro Stile Ducati. Unlike the normal practice with prototypes, the livery does not hide the lines but exalts them by deliberately revealing how the bike will finally look.“The Streetfighter V4 will be one of the stars of the Ducati World Premiere 2020,” says Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati. “Streetfighter V4 is the Panigale for road riding, so there was no better stage than the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for what will be the highest performance Streetfighter ever put into production.”The SF V4 will be presented to the public at EICMA 2019 and will be available in Ducati dealerships starting Spring 2020.
Hello everyone and welcome once again to Ultimate Motorcycling’s weekly Podcast—Motos and Friends.
My name is Arthur Coldwells.
This week’s Podcast is brought to you by Yamaha motorcycles. Discover how the YZF-R7 provides the perfect balance of rider comfort and true supersport performance by checking it out at YamahaMotorsports.com, or see it for yourself at your local dealer.
This week’s episode features Senior Editor Nic de Sena’s impressions of the beautiful new Harley-Davidson Low Rider ST that is loosely based around the original FXRT Sport Glide from the 1980s. Hailing from The Golden State, these cult-status performance machines became known as West Coast style, with sportier suspension, increased horsepower, and niceties including creature comforts such as a tidy fairing and sporty luggage.
In past episodes you might have heard us mention my best friend, Daniel Schoenewald, and in the second segment I chat with him about some of the really special machines in his 170 or so—and growing—motorcycle collection. He’s always said to me that he doesn’t consider himself the owner, merely the curator of the motorcycles for the next generation.
Yet Daniel is not just a collector, but I can attest a really skilled rider. His bikes are not trailer queens, they’re ridden, and they’re ridden pretty hard. Actually, we have had many, many memorable rides on pretty much all of the machines in the collection at one time or another.
From all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!