#DucatiPanigale

At EICMA 2023, Ducati celebrated the 30th birthday of its iconic 916 in the only way Ducati knows how – with a limited edition model. Say hello to the Panigale V4 SP2 30° Anniversario 916. Only 500 of these will be made, with each receiving a numbered plate on the triple clamp.

A motojournalist’s life isn’t quite as glorious as it might seem. Endless hours chained to our computers, researching and cranking out words for your education, illumination and, hopefully, entertainment steal time away from what we most enjoy – riding motorcycles. A colleague of ours, Aaron Frank, succinctly described a motoojourno’s job thusly: “It’s the best job in the world two days a month.”

There’s no doubt about it, the Ducati 1199 Panigale is one sexy motorcycle. Its elegant curves and sharp lines make it a bike worth lusting after. If you’re up for it, the 1199cc Superquadro engine will exhilarate the soul unlike anything else we’ve ever ridden, just look how much we gush about the thing in our track and street portions of our 2013 Exotic Literbike Shootout.

The motojournalism game has changed quite a bit during my nearly 20 years in it. Moto-related websites were once greeted with scorn and derision by the traditional players, but Motorcycle.com has been part of the paradigm change and is now firmly entrenched as part of the establishment.

Built for the track, ridden on the street. The bikes here represent the bleeding edge of superbike technology and performance from their respective OEMs. No matter the circuit, each model is capable of setting a blazingly fast lap time. Gauging superiority among these three on the street is a much more difficult result to quantify.

Recently, we published a story on the least expensive motorcycles to insure. In it, the bikes were broken down by category, knowing that consumers aren’t interested in a list entirely of small-displacement beginner bikes. We also kept the list to current models (2013 in this case) available in the United States.