#DucatiMonster

The cool thing about motorcycles is that they can serve as time machines if you find an original, unmolested one. That's what we have here with this 2007 Ducati Monster S2R1000 found on our sister site DucatiMonster.org. Hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, this Monster looks to be nicely maintained, and with only 3800 miles on the clock, is basically new other than a fork seal that could use replacing.

The success is highlighted throughout Ducati’s top markets: Italy +7 percent, United States and Germany +21 percent

Don’t look now, but the field of naked bikes slotting in just below the 1000cc mark is starting to rise – and we’re all the better for it. Maybe the OEMs have figured out that those big beasts in the upper echelons of naked bike performance are just too much for the more sensible among us. They’re too big, too fast, too powerful, with too much electronics, and too much of a price tag. For those of us still with a desire for naked bike fun, but at a slightly more moderate pace, we bring you the assembly of motorcycling you see before you.

Motorcycle.com is on the scene in fabulous Monaco for the media launch of the upgraded Ducati Monster 1200. Key updates include more power, a redesigned fuel tank that looks more like the original Monster, a new headlight, shorter wheelbase, Bosch Cornering ABS, a slimmer tailsection and updated TFT instrumentation. Oh, and new footpegs that don’t force feet into uncomfortable positions like the previous generation.

With EBR’s recent trademark filing for the name Black Lightning, we’re waiting in anticipation to see what Erik Buell will bring to us next. However, while we await the Black Lightning, let’s go back in time and visit one of Buell’s earlier cult hits, and possibly the grandfather to the Black Lightning: the S1 Lightning. The MO staff dubbed the bike “ Buell’s Monster” and even called it “The most radical motorcycle yet from the Buell Motor Company.” With its hopped up Sportster 1200 engine housed inside a sporting package far removed from the cruiser the 1200 V-Twin was originally intended for, the S1 was a radical bike then and remains a cult classic today. Read on to see what the early MOron crew thought of the bike. 

Ah, the Monster S4R, what an immaculate motorcycle it was. The collective gasp of discovering its disappearance from Ducati’s model lineup in 2009 still echoes. For those who continue lamenting the loss of the S4R (like me), its phoenix has arisen in the 2014 Monster 1200 and Monster 1200 S.