Desmosedici Test - Not for mere Morals

Just a few days after the final MotoGP race of the year, the Spanish circuit of Valencia was open again and host to the annual press test of all the MotoGP bikes – renowned motorcycle journalist Mat Oxley rode Capirossi's Ducati MotoGP Team Desmosedici GP5.

I'm cruising down Valencia's pit lane after completing my handful of laps aboard Loris Capirossi's Ducati MotoGP Team Desmosedici GP5, his crew clap me mockingly as I enter into the pits. I take off my helmet, my head still swimming in the chaos of doing battle with a 250 horsepower engine. I feel like I've been wrestling with Cerberus at the Gates of Hades. It occurs to me that another few laps and I might have gone insane.

Ducati MotoGP project leader Livio Suppo and technical director Corrado Cecchinelli are the first to attempt communication with me. "Did you try the different mapping?" they ask. Well yes, I did consider attempting to evaluate the alternative engine-mapping curve that had been provided for us to test. Capirossi usually has two or three different curves, so he can experiment with different power deliveries during practice or tame the motor if things get a bit slippery. It's easy to switch curves too, just hit the button on the left handlebar.

Easy for him, that is. During my few laps I never really got close to thumbing the button. Every time I thought about it, I nearly ran off at the next corner. For a normal mortal like myself there simply isn't enough time to think about anything but keeping the Desmosedici on the racetrack. Riding this motorcycle around Valencia is like riding a 999 around your local supermarket. It is just too fast, corners appear before you as if by magic, almost before you've left the preceding turn, as if the machine is playing some kind of trick with the speed of light. Believe me, even Albert Einstein would've had trouble getting his head around the Desmosedici.

And then there's the start-finish straight, which the V4 devours like some kind of rabid beast, revs building to the 16,500 rpm peak in a maelstrom of noise and astonishing power. The kick returns relentlessly with every gearshift, the motor apparently pulling as hard in sixth gear as it does in first gear. And the power isn't all up top. The Desmosedici's LCD tacho only starts at 7000 rpm, but you can let the revs sink way deeper than that and it will still pull hard. I never rode Ducati's 2003 or 2004 MotoGP bikes, but other testers who did ride those earlier bikes reckon the GP5 is a much tamer beast.

Ducati Corse has worked wonders with the engine mapping, as Capirossi affirms: "The GP5 isn't so wild, we went forward in a good way, made a big jump. Compared to 2004 the feeling between the gas and the tyre was much better, the connection much better. We worked a lot with engine management to have an easy feeling with the throttle, easier control."

The chassis is remarkably friendly. Engineering a race bike that's stable at 340 kmh and yet steers with ease into 60 kmh hairpins isn't easy. But that's what Ducati Corse has achieved. Even at my pedestrian pace the chassis and tyres gave me enough feedback to feel much less concerned that I'd felt while testing a rival MotoGP bike earlier in the day.

But my only real feeling after the ride is of being totally overawed, of realising that these motorcycles are so far beyond a normal motorcyclist's range of experience that they might as well be Apollo rockets. No, the Desmosedici is not meant for people like me, I am neither Hercules nor Capirossi. Big respect Loris, you're a bloody hero!

Many thanks to Mat Oxley.