Waiting patiently for the 2013 Hypermotard family

It seems like forever ago that I was up at silly hours of the morning waiting for the news to finally hit – that there would be three new bikes in the family, all based on a new 820 donk and no 1100 effectively signing the end of the air-cooled era over to the Monster family exclusively. But how much longer until we get to see them in the flesh?

Sadly it wasn’t to be at the Melbourne  Australian Motorcycle Expo with no new bikes to look at, at the Ducati Australia stand. I’m told that it’s likely to be around April but I’m not really sure how much of this is speculation vs reality.

 

There have however been plenty of sightings in the flesh across Europe and pictures of the new Hypermotard SP and Hyperstrada have been appearing here there and everywhere on the internet, torturing me. One reader has even had the pleasure of riding one in Thailand! Seriously?

But what do I think of the new bike? Well it’s taken me quite a while to decide what I actually think of it, and of course I’m still speculating until I can throw a leg over one, but as far as smaller bikes go, I reckon this thing should be total horn to ride.

However, I like my bikes to have more power than handling typically, so smaller bikes like the Streetfighter 848 (with more handling than power), have never really appealed to me. I used to love my TRX 850 before I realised it would just never have enough power to satisfy me and I quickly outgrew it. Sadly I think that will apply to the baby Hypers as well.

I read this on the Ducati.ms forum where I sourced the below pics from, and it really resonated with me; ‘it’ll be no slouch, but I won’t respect or fear it’.

Describes my thoughts perfectly, and was pretty much how I instinctively felt about the Streetfighter 848 on my test ride. Sure I liked it, it was a great fun bike that I know went like a shower of shit but didn’t really scare the bejeezus out of me like the Hyper 1100 EVO SP did (does). It’s the way a four valve, water cooled twin can rev; the whole rev and therefore power range is completely different. To be honest to me it feels more like Jap bike. Is there punishment for saying that about our beloved Ducati?

There is a certain thing that either happens or doesn’t, to me when I ride a bike and it comes down to what that guy on the forum said, if I don’t fear it I won’t respect it. If I don’t get that certain rush of blood to the head that hijacks your amygdala kicking into FEAR mode then I probably won’t be happy with that bike for very long.

The Buell XB12X did it when I first rode it and I had that bike for four years of solid riding. The Hyper certainly did it (still does) when I first got it and I have come to know it only as being in big fat mother fullaga twins. POWER. I need all of it.

Nothing makes my throat dryer than unadulterated power. I think that’s why I don’t really dig riding big one litre sportsbikes. It’s something to do with the way the power spins up – it doesn’t do it for me, sure it’s fast and you can keep revving until your eyes pop out of your head but it’s not the same sense of power and torque derived from ringing the neck out of twin. And I ride litre sportsbikes with no sense of speed, which is very license prohibitive.

So back onto the new Hyper. I really like the new, refined looks.

 

Sad to see the under-tail exhaust go, but perhaps it was getting a bit long in the tooth anyway, and on the whole it looks a lot tidier from the back now.

 

No trellis sub frame. Hmm… not sure about that. I really dug the full trellis look personally but from an aesthetics point of view this new design makes the red trellis pop more(?), but I don’t know what else it means to be honest with you.

Is that a chain guard or protective something in the pic above? Sure seems to cover an awful lot of the chain (rip it off!).

In all reality, it looks the same from the front, don’t kid yourself that the beak has those Multistrada-esque grooves now, it looks the same.

 

Nice fender work on the fork protectors but I’m not sure that’ll help stop water from flicking up from the front wheel up over the fender into your face.

They have included 10 spoke wheels from the Panigale.

The look from the seat looks pretty familiar to me as well, but I’m thinking I saw a new dash LCD somewhere, maybe the monitor has been upgraded but the housing is the same?

There is a fair bit going on different on the tail.

There is actually a tail now! With the combination of the new sub-frame and lack of exhaust up all in there, we have a new Hyper arse end altogether. Quite a few variations of this have been around for the Hyper for a while but now there is an actuall Ducati version I wonder if any existing Hyper owners will try to adapt this to an 1100?

Actually there could be a few parts that might tart up an 1100. Like the new bark busters and stork indicators… would they look any good, better different? Notice that the flip out mirrors are a thing of the past now. Should I start a stock pile now for oopsies?

So while I’m disappointed there isn’t an air cooled 1100 any more I am still pleased they are continuing with the Hyper family, most of all the Hyperstrada variant looks really interesting and we’d all really have loved if they could have given us an 1100 EVO SP with a 16L tank  and a Multi engine, but I guess it just wasn’t to be. Dam emissions crapola!

I guess the real test will be just that. The test ride. Still a few months to wait on that one, until then, as always, ride naked.