Coming To Terms With My 2019 Ducati Hypermotard 950

Recently, I took a ride to a rural diner a couple hours from my house in upstate New York. Following the convention of diners everywhere, the walls were decorated with signs displaying cheesy platitudes like, “Count the memories, not the calories,” and “Coffee: the most important meal of the day.” There was one particularly sentimental one that read, “May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends,” which made me think: “I’d rather my home be too small to hold all of my Ducatis. My friends can always sit outside.”

Now, my wife, Leah, is used to indulging my motorcycle habit, but we do have differing opinions on what number of Ducatis qualifies as a “surfeit of Ducatis.” In my mind, one can never have too many desmodromic valves to adjust.

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In the early years of our marriage, Leah and I agreed to a two-motorcycle limit—pretty generous on her part considering at the time I was earning minimum wage as a farmhand (further evincing the practical application of an undergraduate degree in English). Our marriage doesn’t operate on an ask-for-permission basis—we’re equals in this, after all—but I will admit to feeling like I’ve taken some liberties with our accord, considering there are currently four motorcycles in the garage.

Anyway, last summer, Ducati loaned me a 2019 Hypermotard 950, and I promptly fell in love with it. To help Leah become subconsciously amenable to the idea of adding another Ducati to the garage, I began to construct an Italian ambiance around the house that would make the procurement of another Italian motorcycle seem inevitable. This technique is what psychologists call “priming.” I started cooking a lot of pasta, so the house always had a faint garlicky perfume about it. I regularly played overly romantic 1960s Italian music (see: Edoardo Vianello) on the hi-fi. And I mixed a lot of Negronis and poured a lot of Sangioveses—which is a technique Italians call priming.

I thought I was being quite subtle with the whole game, but Leah, it turns out, could see my new-Ducati intentions from a mile away. I wonder how obvious my advances are in other arenas.

Long story short, we agreed that we could make a happy home for a new Hypermotard, but I had to get rid of my 899 Panigale to make room for it. So last October, I did just that.

I put less than 1,000 miles on the Hyper before snowfall, and then had the long winter to contemplate it—or more precisely, something bothering me about its performance.

This spring, I got a call from my friend Alex who works at Ducati North America. He’s the guy who’s responsible for me getting me on the Hyper press bike in the first place.

“How’re you liking the new bike?” Alex asked.

“I really love it, in general,” I told him. “The engine’s a riot, the ergos are humane, and the handling is great. But the throttle response isn’t quite _there_ for me. It’s a bit edgy—almost artificial feeling. It’s a bit abrupt under 4,000 rpm, and whenever I get off the gas it feels like I chopped the throttle.”

Now, I couldn’t have been more glowing in my review of the testbike, so my own bike’s rough edges bothered me more than they would have otherwise. Rather than enjoying the ride, I found myself consciously thinking about what my right hand was doing. Cynics may wonder if there was some clandestine fiddling with the press bike’s ECU back in Italy, but Alex assured me that wasn’t possible.

“I can live with it,” I told Alex, “but I’m considering my options. Maybe a new pipe and an ECU flash.”

Alex, who used to work as a Ducati tech, pointed out that flashing the ECU would void my warranty, which I was loath to do, and that a new slip-on alone would still use the stock map, so it would be unlikely to improve throttle response very much.

“Tell you what,” Alex began. “If you’re willing to turn the bike into a trackbike, I’ll send you the competition-only Termignoni full system ($3,009) from the Ducati performance catalog. It comes with a dedicated map that uploads directly from your dealer’s Ducati diagnostics tool. That should fix any complaints you have. Plus, it comes with a two-year warranty.”

Twist my arm, why don’t you, Alex.

My mechanic Steve Saucier at Hudson Valley Motorcycles installed the exhaust, complete with revised ECU map, in just a couple hours.

I’m happy to report the issues with the throttle response have been largely resolved. It pulls far more cleanly from the bottom and feels punchier than ever. And the sound. Every time I open the gas, it sounds like I’m sitting in John Bonham’s bass drum. I can feel it resonating in my chest and through the seat.

Shortly after getting the exhaust installed, I was contemplating the Hypermotard in my garage and enjoying a nice glass of wine, when Leah wandered out.

“You opened a bottle? I’d like a glass,” she said, overlooking the shiny new exhaust as though it was inevitable that it would be there.

So, maybe the priming worked after all—at least as far as the exhaust goes. Considering the exhaust’s transformative effect on the bike, to me, it certainly feels like installing it was an inevitability. The Hypermotard is now every bit the bike I hoped it could be. “True, I’m down a Panigale,” I thought to myself as I poured Leah a glass of Sangiovese, but then I recollected another tired diner-wall cliche: “Happy wife, happy life.” Can’t argue with that.

Plus, I don’t have to make our friends sit outside when they come to visit.