Donovan Fourie gets to ride red again…
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the pages of RideFast, you might’ve seen that Ducati has undergone a regime change in South Africa. After being passed around a few times over the last few decades, the factory in Italy screamed “enough” and handed the reins over to someone it already knows well – Volkswagen. Volkswagen Group Africa, more specifically.
On the international front, VW owns Ducati globally, so fitting it in with its local subsidiary seems logical.
One of the main concerns among Ducatisti was the thought of buying their precious Italian gem while it’s sitting on a showroom next to a Polo Vivo, but we were assured that a stand-alone Ducati dealer network would be established.
Centurion already has its dealer, so that remains. The next territory was Cape Town, more specifically the suburb of Claremont, and they have gone further by calling the place Ducati Claremont.
Obviously, we Joburgers don’t know the bloody difference, so we kept referring to it as Ducati Cape Town, and found it odd that the Ducati people kept correcting us. We put it down to simple pedantry. Then I was invited to MC the dealership’s grand opening, so I popped onto a plane, was collected at the airport and driven to the shop.
After we turned off the freeway, we entered this beautiful, leafy suburb, with narrow roads, gorgeous houses and the magnificent Table Mountain looming overhead.
“Where are we?” I asked my friendly driver.
“Claremont,” he replied with the nonchalance of a resident.
Oh. I get it now. This is Ducati Claremont. Not Ducati Cape Town.
The shop is located in a building designated a monument, and is as fittingly beautiful as the surrounding area, and the merchandise now gracing its floors. The opening went well, was well attended and people seemed impressed with what they saw.
There were many people keen to talk to “the guy from TV,” and some of them were even charitable enough to compliment him. One keen fellow was a gent named Aussie Mike, because his name is Mike and he’s originally from Australia. He asked what my plans were for the rest of the weekend, and I mentioned my Sunday thoughts.
Ducati Claremont was gracious enough to offer me a demo bike to use on the Sunday after the opening, so I immediately went for gold and asked for a Panigale V4. The new one that we have not yet had a chance to ride. What could be better? The latest Italian superbike through the majestic Cape. Amazingly, Daniel from Claremont said yes, and now the question that remained was where to ride? More specifically, which of the Cape’s many many glorious roads to choose from? It’s truly like being a kid in the middle of a sweet factory.
“A few mates and I are going for our usual ride tomorrow. You’re welcome to join us,” supplied the generous Aussie Mike. Grand! I had a tour guide.
At 9am the next morning, I rocked up and there was Aussie Mike on his Ducati Supersport. Plus a whole gang of people ready to ride.
It’s a party!
On to the bike – it was the regular Panigale V4, not the more kitted “S” model and certainly not the homologated racer “R” model, but those motorcycles are geared more for the extremities of race track endeavours, and we are riding on the public road. The base V4 will do just fine.
A kind Claremont staff member opened the store, handed me the keys and the bike thundered into life.
Literally, in fact. Daniel had gone one further than simply letting me ride a Panigale V4; he also fitted it with an Akrapovic exhaust. The motor started in the showroom – the huge windows shook, people jumped and, I swear, a bit of the roof crumbled to the floor.
Bless Daniel’s soul for this wonderful gesture.
We set off with Aussie Mike out front, and me not having a clue where we were going, but already it was good. We navigated through trees, beautiful buildings and even brilliant roads. And this is many people’s trip to work every day.
Let’s clear this up – Joburg has some okay-ish roads. Hekpoort Pass, the Hennops Roads, the Cradle Road and so on. Cape Town has driveways that are better roads than those.
We were not going fast through town, and the Panigale was purring beautifully. With a seat height of 850mm, it’s a similar distance from the ground as many adventure bikes, so it is rather tall. It needs this height so that, in the furnace of extreme lean angles, bits of it don’t scrape on the ground.
We wound our way up the narrow road to the lookout point on Signal Hill because the Joburger will appreciate the view, and indeed he did. The hill overlooks downtown Cape Town as it encroaches on the craggy base of Table Mountain. It’s an annoyingly good-looking city.
After the Joburg newbie had had his fill of envy, we made our way back down the mountain, through the nek between Signal Hill and Table Mountain, and descended upon the seaside town of Hout Bay. We stopped for breakfast at the little cafe called Casareccio, a venue that seems to be the local biking meet point.
With eggs and a couple of hot beverages soothing our souls, it was off south to the famous Chapman Peak, a narrow band of road that navigates its sinuous way along the craggy cliffs. To the left is a towering wall of rock, and to the right is a view of the ocean enjoyed more by someone not plummeting off the accompanying cliff.
The road constitutes tight bends neatly connected by straights, few of them exceeding 200m long, and not enough to do that 1103cc V-four motor, bursting out 216hp, any justice. Into the bends, it is utterly sublime. The entire package weighs 191kg, a pittance in the world of modern motorcycles. It feels both confident and agile, a rare combination that ignores such silly things as the laws of physics.
The new Hypure front callipers from Brembo, that have debuted on this bike, work exceptionally well, not only providing enough brake force to cause severe internal haemorrhaging, but offering massive dollops of feel that allows the rider to moderate the braking deep into the corner. Rider skill failing, the cornering ABS will keep the bike in check, and far more than you think it will.
The system uses a clever combined braking based on the data from the MotoGP riders. It works thusly – in a straight line, you want the front brake at full capacity while the rear, having no weight on it, is only lightly balancing the bike. As the bike leans into a corner, you want the front to slowly start releasing, while the rear increases pressure. That’s because braking hard with the front will cause the bike to want to stand up, while the rear will help pull the bike into the corner. That’s how MotoGP riders do it, and the braking system on this Panigale mimics that behaviour regardless of which brake you, as a rider, are pulling.
To simplify, the people around us might’ve thought I was braking with the skill of a MotoGP rider, meanwhile it was the bike doing all the work. Please don’t tell Aussie Mike that.
Eventually, the cliff-faced coastline came to an end, and the road straightened out somewhat as we headed inland. This gave the opportunity to wind the throttle a little more, and even on roads straight as an arrow, you open that throttle at your peril.
The motor barks into life, sending the bike mostly in a forward direction, and very quickly in a forward direction. With that, the front wheel resists by attempting to lift into the air and, ultimately, flip the bike backwards. Or it would if the wheelie control didn’t kick in, marked by a little light on the TFT dash that tells the rider: “You are very lucky I am here.”
The scenery distorts, the wind howls around your helmet and you arms strain at the surge as you click up through the gearbox using the quickshifter to make the tone of the motor change, the numbers on the dash next to “km/h” blur as they struggle to keep up. A long straight road very quickly becomes a short straight road, and the Hypure callipers are again called into action while the quickshifter again helps with the down changes, making that Akro exhaust snarl viciously in protests.
As for the rider, he is both smiling giddily and sweating nervous puddles.
Let’s do that again!
Eventually, Aussie Mike led us through some boom gates that designate the final stretch towards Cape Point, the very tip of the Cape Peninsula. It’s a game reserve, so the going was slower as the road meandered through the fynbos, baboons watching us curiously. The eventual parking lot was awash with tourist buses and people with funny accents. By this point, we were down to only the Ducatis of Mike and me, and we stuck out like sore thumbs among the throng of tourists, although every guy wearing a bright polo shirt and sandals gave us a long, admiring look. Even tourists are human, after all.
We sat at a kiosk, sipping drinks and telling tall tales of our ride, and tales can become very tall indeed on Ducatis.
I haven’t offered any criticism of the Panigale V4 because on a bike like this in this setting, on these incredible roads with the backdrop of the amazing Cape Peninsula, how can anyone have a negative thought? It just doesn’t happen. This is the best life gets.
The only criticism that could hold water is the old “this is too much bike”. Maybe it is, although while some see it as a criticism, I see it as an opportunity. Yes, the Panigale was not taken anywhere near its limits – I would contest that there are few riders in the world who can catch sight of those limits – but it’s a thrilling thought knowing you have a bike of such immense capabilities at your humble fingertips.
And then, every now and then, you find a suitably open road, where a mischievous streak grows, the corners of your mouth tilt upwards, you brace yourself and open the throttle, letting the full force of Hades and all of its demons unleash.
There truly is no better feeling in the world.
This Ducati Panigale V4 was supplied by Ducati Claremont – 021 002 5150
Price: R469,000
