2013 Ducati Panigale R Onboard Video Review

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.

Websites have a glaringly obvious speed-to-publish advantage over a print magazine, and it also brings an element to bike tests previously unattainable: the sights and sounds of motorcycles rolling past video cameras.

At MO, we’ve long embraced the power of video, even if at first the videos were excruciatingly rudimentary. But with better and smaller video cameras, we’ve been able to explore and expand what’s possible in delivering visual and audio information to our readers.

Take our recent Exotic Superbike Shootout that featured BMW’s sensational HP4, Ducati’s incredible Panigale R and Aprilia’s savory RSV4 Factory. Not only did we divide the test into Street and Track portions, we also produced a video episode for each.

And still there’s more. As part of our street testing, we wired up our three test riders with a mic and onboard video camera to get some from-the-seat commentary. Well, there turned out to be way more footage than we could include in our street-focused video, so we decided to go the extra mile to deliver our onboard commentary in a video for each bike. Credit to Sean Matic for producing the videos and including some additional clips of the bikes to spice it up.

First up is my commentary aboard the sexy Panigale R, a race-bred machine that churned out an exotic 186 horsepower at the rear when fitted with its included Termignoni exhaust and ECU remap. Now join me as I take you for a ride on one of the most thrilling sportbikes ever made.