Motorcycle Of The Year 2016 finalist- Ducati XDiavel S

First of all, welcome to the party. Over the course of 12 busy months it can be hard to savour the hits and highlights as they happen, so for us the Motorcycle of the Year award is a welcome chance to revisit and celebrate our favourite bikes.

This year we selected eight wonders: the Kawasaki ZX-10R, the Honda Africa Twin, the Triumph Thruxton R, the Aprilia 1100 Tuono Factory, the MV Agusta Brutale 800, the Ducati XDiavel S, the Yamaha MT-10 and the KTM Super Duke GT. They come from across the spectrum of bike genres: adventurers, tourers, café racers, nakedbikes and out-and-out track weapons.

What they have in common is that they all stood out from the two-wheeled crowd in 2016. Each scored an invite to AMCN’s annual MOTY ride, which this year took in the Great Ocean Road and some of the best scratching roads in the Otway Ranges. Saddle up…

Ducati XDiavel S

Ducati deserves extra praise for its efforts in 2016. Arguably the most deserving new model to miss the cut for MOTY 2016 is the Multistrada Enduro, a highly impressive debut for Ducati in the adventure market. The Panigale 959 is also worthy of special mention, as a highly accessible real world supersports bike.

But topping the list of Bologna’s finest for 2016 is the genre-splitting badass black brilliance of the XDiavel. If you think you know what cruisers are all about, be ready to be blown away – just like any sportsbike rider who underestimates this devilishly deceptive force of engineering.

Feet-forward riding no longer means you can’t carve it up with the boyracer brigade, because this cruiser was built for cornering as well as corralling attention. These two design targets have been pursued with equal vigour and passion, bringing Ducati’s formidable flair for fashion and performance engineering expertise together in a daring attack on the cruiser market’s antiquated conventions. Cruise control is the most mainstream of the XDiavel’s electrickery. Launch control, cornering ABS, and eight-level traction control (letting you blacken the road with impunity), are not your standard cruiser fare. And neither is the 40º of  heel-dragging lean angle which is willingly delivered.

Of course, the XDiavel is never going to be a populist model in the mould of Harley-Davidson’s massive sales successes in Australia. This is partly due to its high-performance and hi-tech position in a market sector which is inherently anti-modernistic in many ways, and partly due to the price tag. But, considering what you get for your cashola when compared to other premium-priced cruisers, the XDiavel punches well above its lithesome, very un-cruiser-like weight.

At first the feeling is completely unfamiliar, and it takes time to figure out the XDiavel’s capabilities in terms of sharpness of steering, potential lean angle, and grip. But the more you push, the more the XDiavel reveals an abundance of all these attributes. There isn’t the understeer you might expect, and even bump-induced steering deviation in cornering – the bane of over-tyred bikes – is barely noticeable. Keep pushing and the XDiavel keeps giving.

Cruisers trade on the promise of being badass, which more often than not presents itself in the form of plainly bad road manners. And the bigger the differential between front and rear wheel sizes, generally the worse the handling gets, to the point where some customised choppers are virtually unrideable. That’s why the XDiavel is a wonder of mechanical engineering. With the largest rear tyre available on a production motorcycle, a regular supersport sized front tyre and cruiser ergonomics, this low-slung, well-hung show pony simply shouldn’t work. But it does, and some.