meat – but by this stage you ’ ve gone mad and don ’ t care . I stopped caring about the heat thing after Day Two . Sure , there were times when I actually thought my right foot was on fire and my left thigh was a weeping burn blister . But I didn ’ t care . Why ? Because that is the price you must pay to ride one of the most amazing bikes ever made on this earth . Yes , it is THAT good . I ’ m not . And you ’ re not . But it is . It so , so , so is . And because it is not as ergonomically compromised as other superbikes , you will find it so easy to suddenly ride in a fashion and with a level of elan and grace you ’ d have imagined just not possible .
YOU AREN ’ T GOOD ENOUGH You ’ re not going to find the Panigale ’ s limits . I ’ m not even sure it has any as far as mere mortals are concerned . It ’ s better than you at doing everything – and not just a little better . A lot better . The way it deals with corners – all sorts , smooth , bumpy , terrifying – is sublime and effortless . Whenever I ’ d run out of confidence , it didn ’ t . But as the pace climbed , the more intense it all got , and the more focused and purposeful I got , and the better the Panigale responded . And it ’ s legitimately , resoundingly , and brain-fryingly fast . But you ’ d never know that just toodling around in traffic or around town . I thought it would hunt , or burp , or something , at low droning speeds . Nope . All smoothness and manners . But turn that throttle in anger and you ’ ll suddenly see what anger really is – real , red-meat anger . At 4000rpm it ’ s doing 120 . It redlines at 17,250 . And no . I do not know how fast it goes . Faster than me , that ’ s for sure . I saw numbers consisting of a pair of twos and maybe a two and some threes – but then I stopped looking and caring and just rode . The Panigale is , by any measure , devastatingly fast and potent – and surprisingly much louder than I thought it would be . It actually sounds rather magnificent – and only a V4 could ever make a noise like that , or maybe a Tyrannosaurus fighting another Tyrannosaurus – despite the stock exhaust .
FIND A SETTING ... AND GO It is technologically sophisticated beyond compare . I ’ m not going to get into all its computers can do , but I ’ m sure a moonlanding is not beyond them . You can look it up , or go to the Ducati website for all the tech-stuff . I fumbled around with the manifold modes and settings – and then , like 99 per
KIWI RIDER 55