2019 Ducati Hypermotard 950 First Ride Review

Gather around, young ones, and let me tell you a story, about the curious era of hybrid beasts known as supermotos that once roamed the earth. Picture a time when the last stock market crash was 1929 and Lyft was just a typo. Close your eyes and imagine no wheelie control or traction control, or any controls beyond the ones you can touch with your hands and feet. GPS was for cars and our dash screens were in black and white. Street motorcycles were sometimes simply dirt bikes with street wheels and tires.

It was a reckless period—not enough engine oil for freeway travel and too much suspension travel to use a normal kickstand—but the beautiful world of supermoto painted skids on the walls of two-wheeled history that we can still see today. Exhibit A, every worn-out and sad Suzuki DR-Z400 with a Yoshimura pipe. Once as desirable as a Jesse James chopper and now equally forgotten, appreciated only by we precious few purists who still believe in the supermoto gospel and hide out in the forest of the modern industry like an indigenous wheelie people not welcome in society.

Exhibit B, the Hypermotard from Ducati. It was brought to life in 2008 during a fiery era of performance and it capitalized on all of the hungry supermoto minds that craved the transparency of a simple machine but also more thrust. Powered by 1,100cc of air-cooled, Italian nostalgia, it had a flat handlebar and enough torque to make all of our bad ideas come to life. After a slow evolution to liquid-cooling and dabbling in "Strada" practicality, it is now reborn in 2019 as the Hypermotard 950. It's been massaged and reshaped to take us all back to that time of irreverence and stoppies.

And so Ducati recently created, for a weekend, a sort of Jurassic Park: Grand Canary, a tiny beauty mark on the face of the East Atlantic, coarse with arid and rocky cliffs tumbling down from the steep, volcanic seams. Simple, narrow lanes snake toward the sea like someone sprayed a silly string of biblical grip at the hillsides. The roads are largely smooth and often have no lines. By the beach, the 2019 Hypermotard 950 waits, inviting us to step back to the time of the supermoto.

Being greeted with a tall, flat seat alone brings me back. It’s an uncompromising climb to the saddle, though the bike is narrower in the middle than it used to be. A 35-inch seat is good for the Hyper’s image but if it scares people off that’s bad for business, so the new bike is a little more approachable. In Europe there will be even be a 47-hp version for those budding hooligans stuck on a tiered license. Baby steps.

Like any good Ducati there’s a satisfying salvo of thunder from the pipes when the grip is twisted, and old-school Ducatisti will think there’s a whiff of the famous 916 exhaust style on the Hyper 950. The headers swirl up behind the engine to twin canisters tucked under the seat. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, it feels right.

Putting through town is easy and smooth, with more than 6 inches of suspension travel and a nice, light, hydraulic clutch. I can understand Ducati never wanting to claim anything as boring as the Hyper being made for roundabouts and speed bumps, but the truth is that's actually valuable. Climbing up away from the water and toward the jagged hills of Grand Canary the Hyper 950 shows off that it's as nimble as ever. The frame geometry is the same as the outgoing 939 version but it weighs almost 9 pounds less ready to ride. Maybe more interesting, I stumbled across the fact that the Hyper 950 is 10 pounds heavier than a Panigale V4 S—odd because it feels so much smaller.

Agility is good on Grand Canary, where one moment a rider can be distracted with a stunning view and the next go around a single-lane curve with a tour bus coming the other way. The brakes are sharp and it changes direction almost well enough to make me think I’m on a real supermoto. But I’m not. Truth be told I’m blanketed in technology. Traction control, cornering ABS, and wheelie control all make sure that I don’t have too much fun. A lovely, full-color, TFT dash sits atop the handlebar, just hidden behind the chinbar of my helmet while riding.

All of the tech is great, but the dream is to get lost on a road. I can feel the soul of the bike boiling up inside as I whip through a twisty section of road. On the gas there’s V-twin noise ricocheting off the rock walls and when I clamp the perfectly powerful brakes the Hyper exhales gently as it peels toward another apex. When I get too rowdy the ABS kicks in, and the wheelie nanny slaps my wrist over sharp rises and out of tight hairpins. That can be turned off, but ABS can’t, so there’s no super slides in order for the Hyper 950.

That’s probably for the best, what with our litigious world and, frankly, the incredible performance of modern motorcycles. But I can’t help but wish there was some mode available for those of us who remember the good ol’ days. At the end of the island tour, it’s pretty undeniable that the Hypermotard 950 is a cool motorcycle. It makes the right amount of noise, while being sophisticated and easy to use. It’s clean and smooth and small without being flimsy. It’s a Yamaha MT-09 with hair gel and expensive sunglasses. Sure, at $13,295 for the base bike (and $16,695 for the up-spec SP version) it’s not cheap, but in a lot of ways you get what you pay for. Adjustable levers and suspension, LED lighting, and an engine oozing nostalgia is a combination that costs good money no matter where you look.

The Hyper was born as pure motorcycling. It has grown into a modern gentlebike, with layers of amenities and technology. Wheelie control, a color dash, cornering ABS, and a USB port under the seat; those are all things the Hypermotard has. But what the Hyper 950 really is underneath, and should be recognized for, is raw motorcycling. Maybe I’m getting old, but if Ducati released a Hypermotard with none of the electronics—just give me a speedometer, coolant temp, and a clock on the dash—that would be a seriously fun reason to trade in my supermoto dinosaur.