Video road test: the 2010 Ducati 1198

Be careful if you plan to watch this video at work; the Ducati 1198 is motorcycle lust distilled to its purest form. It packs 170 horsepower, weighs 171 kilograms and has a top speed in excess of 300 km/h – more or less standard figures for a road superbike in these blessed days, but as the king of the V-twins, the 1198 delivers an enormous wall of low-down grunt that its 4-cylinder competitors simply can't match. It's an impossibly gorgeous bike to look at, dripping in exotic sex appeal and high-class performance pedigree... But is it a highly-strung thoroughbred like Aprilia's brutal RSV4, a sportsbike your grandma could ride like Honda's Fireblade, or something in between? From the Ducati WSBK pit garage to the road, Loz Blain and Noel McKeegan roll up the sleeves and put the flagship Ducati through its paces for the latest in our series of HD video motorcycle reviews.

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