2020 Ducati Panigale V4S | First Ride Review

Welcome along guys, well look at this beautiful red Italian which I'm going to be riding for the next week. This is the brand new 2020 Panigale V4S, an absolute beautiful machine. Now this is a first ride review, this is going to be my first impressions of riding this bike. I've literally been a hundred yards on it, bought it from Ducati UK just around the corner. So this is really a first impressions review, I will be following this up with a full review of this machine, an in-depth review, but for this one we're going to jump in, jump on even, and I'm going to give you my first impressions of the beautiful Panigale V4S. Can't stop touching it, it's absolutely beautiful, fully waxed, ready to go. Oh she's lovely, this year it's got wings, it's got the basically last year's V4R body work with the sharp grilles, the wings, this one being the S model has the full electronic EC2 Ohlin system, front and rear, this has the Marchesini forged alloy wheels, Stylima calipers, it's an absolutely incredible machine, and I'm going to jump on. Oh, listen to it, how are they so loud? I think Ducati UK must take the baffles out or something, this is really really loud. First gear, whee, clutch bites early, already I can tell it is absolutely lovely, I love the way your legs fit around the tank, the pegs aren't that high, they're okay, it's a bit of a stretch forward to the handlebars though, but because you're nicely tucked in and sculpted around the tank, I think you can actually take your weight around the tank area, because that's what you should be doing anyway, you shouldn't be really taking the weight on your wrists. Oh it's got some pickup, my first impressions is it seems a bit of a pussycat, throttle response seems nice, the quick shifter and blipper's nice, let's say a little bit of weight on the wrist but it's not too bad, your foot pegs are in a reasonable position, not too high, suspension actually seems quite compliant, it doesn't seem too ridiculously hard, seems quite comfortable if anything, front brake feels nice, Brembo Stylema's all that gubbins, good bit of mid-range, picks up nicely there, very stable, the front wheel wasn't even really trying to come up then, it seems a lot of inherent stability and that's what I found with the Streetfighter as well, a little bit there comes up a little bit, but it feels stable. Now this will be quite a good test because I'm coming back on all of the back roads, these roads are going to be pretty rough, so it's going to point out straight away, how much road do you want Mr Tractor, it's going to point out straight away, you know any shortfalls in the suspension, because this is going to be quite a rough ride. Yeah the suspension seems quite soft, seems to be quite a lot of movement, quite compliant, soaking those bumps up, I was expecting it to be very hard, other EC2 systems I've ridden, like the new Brutale 1100 for example, I'll put a card at the top there, but that was rock hard, this is smooth, I don't know if they've got this set, the bike's in Sport, which should also adjust the suspension, but at the moment first impressions is it's really comfortable, quick shift is super smooth, it's not very nice up and down, it's not particularly aggressive, it's not an aggressive quick shift, it's quite a slow smooth, look at that, moving the lever up and down, it's precise, there's no movement in the actual lever itself, it's just very precise, clicks into gear, lovely action to the actual gear lever, I like that, the manners are lovely, consider we're in Sport mode, its manners are pretty nice, I mean this is first gear, the throttle's nice, there's no sort of snatchiness, even setting first, if you go a bit higher the motor seems tractable, low down the rev range, yeah there's no dramas about it being a pain in traffic I don't think. You feel at home on it straight away I'd say, there is a lot of weight on your wrist though, I think there's more than the H2 and that was, I thought that was quite bad, very compliant suspension, I say again that is, that makes it a joy actually, even over these really bumpy back roads, it still, it feels quite, quite soft, the whole thing feels quite soft, I mean in a good way, you know, it's not all hard and aggressive, it feels, it feels quite soft and usable. I think what these also do is, because of that temperature, because you've got that exhaust, you've got the exhaust and you've got the cylinder right under your seat or twin blanker cylinders, what these actually do is in traffic, I think when you're below 15 miles an hour, it actually turns off the rear cylinders, so it cuts the fuel to them, so they don't generate as much heat, so that's quite a clever little thing, we'll see if we can notice that when we come into a town maybe, but I can certainly feel the heat at the moment and it's not a particularly hot day today, it's about 22 degrees today and with jeans on I can feel it, it's not uncomfortable, it's just, it's just, you're just aware of it, such a lot of grunt and that is the beauty, you know, this engine is really responsive, that is one thing you get with the V4, I mean the double R when you opened it up, you know, it was a straight, it had an amazing amount of torque because of the, because it had this shift cam engine, you know, the variable valve timing, but this is just bang, loads of grunt, apparently Ducati have done something to soften off the throttle a little bit on here and I noticed that on the street fighter, where you can tell you're not getting all the torque straight away, there's a sort of build-up to it and I think that makes it a little bit more easier to ride on the road perhaps, but I think the trade-off is perhaps it makes it feel a little bit more disconnected, you can feel it's doing something, it doesn't feel like you've got a one-to-one connection to those, that throttle body, very, very easy to overtake, absolutely instant, there's no waiting for the revs to build up, absolutely instant, instantaneous power, instantaneous power, turn left, sorry, I'm also trying to follow the sat nav as well, audibly, when you do come to the little towns, the 30s, it's a shame there's no cruise control to now push and rest your arms and stuff, but yeah, cruise along the 30 nice enough, that's absolutely fine, it goes all quiet and then it makes noise again, so it's sort of like, that could be it shutting down the the rear bank of cylinders I said about, maybe the rear bank of cylinders is now off, stop it getting too hot, open the throttle up and then it comes back again, comfort-wise I've been riding half an hour, I'm starting to get a little bit of pain in the bum, I think the seat is actually quite thin, because you've got quite a lot of weight on your wrist it's not too bad, because you're not carrying all the weight on your arse, the scoops of the tank are great for gripping with your knees and alleviating a bit of weight on the bars, but yeah, it's quite, it's quite a wristy bike, the seat seems quite thin and there's quite a lot of heat, the engine on these is very clever, they've got the counter-rotating crankshaft, so basically what happens is the whole engine is spinning in the opposite direction to what the wheels are, so the wheels are going that way, the engine is going that way and that's to try and offset some of that gyroscopic effect by making the engine run in a different direction, which is real, I mean that's real MotoGP tech, absolute MotoGP tech, very clever stuff and I think that makes the whole bike turn quicker, obviously, and I think it makes the bike more stable, because on the Streetfighter I borrowed, that was a naked, so you didn't necessarily want that to be too stable, and that was probably my main criticism of that bike, was it was almost too stable, too easy to ride and the wheel just didn't want to come up, because I don't know what magic Ducati have done to the chassis with 200 horsepower, the wheel still didn't want to come up, I think it's a combination of incredible electronics and just natural stability in the chassis, I know they've raised the swinging arm pivot up a little bit on these, they've tuned the chassis compared to last year to make it easier to ride and I think more stable, let's have him, there's no wheelie, there's no, the electronics aren't even flashing at me, I think it's just got my inherent stability, you know, I think on the RSV4, you know, I bought the new RSV4 the other week, so I rode that recently, that would be flashing, the electronics would be restricting it, trying to keep the wheel down, I think the systems on this are much more advanced, I think they're starting to show their age a little bit, the electronics on the Tuono, the electronics on the RSV4, they intervene too much, they actually slows down your forward progress, I think Ducati with this, the chassis is so good, the electronics are so good, when they're mating together, the whole package is just so stable, yeah getting a bit of heat around the old testicles, it's definitely warm, it's definitely a warm bike, it'll be a good winter commuter, you certainly don't need a heated seat as an option, let's put it that way, let's give it some beats, even in first gear, it's not trying to lift the wheel, even full throttle first gear, it's not trying to wheelie, how have they done that, wet here, we don't want to get it wet do we, go again, I think the highlight so far on the bike is the quickshifter and blipper, very very good, obviously the look of it, it looks a million dollars, which is just as well, because that's how much it costs, it sounds incredible as well, absolutely sounds incredible, if this is just a standard exhaust, I don't know what they've done anything to it, it needs nothing more, it sounds amazing, also the electronics are incredible and I think the bike's stability, that's what's standing out as being incredible from my brief ride so far, Jesus Christ, I was airborne, this road is awful, absolutely awful, I was out of the seat, yeah we won't do that again, 0-60, it's quick, I've just stopped to change the batteries, but the reason you get a bit of heat between your legs is because the rear cylinder is here and obviously your legs are coming around here, so the air is coming up into your groin area, so you do get a bit of heat from these and of course you've got the exhaust there as well, so it's a double whammy really, a double whammy to the testees, I've also got to say a massive thank you to Planet Knox for joining the channel and being a channel sponsor, you may have noticed the Knox gear and some logos, you know, at the beginning of the videos recently, well they're now an official channel sponsor, so I wore their kit anyway, but now they're giving me some more kits, so I've got some proper hand droid gloves, but their stuff is so good and I'm so happy to have them on board because their kit is just absolute quality, I'm not going to bang on about it, I'm not going to say come and buy this kit, but there will be a little flash up on the screen to say check out the Knox gear in the description, so I'll link all the kit I'm wearing in the description, but yeah, massive massive welcome to Knox for joining the channel, absolutely brilliant to have them on board, it's brilliant to have quality sponsors on the channel and Knox is certainly one of them, but anyway enough of that, I'll just put launch control on now, well there we go guys, I think that's about all I can tell you about this bike really, from a first impressions ride point of view, I will be doing another full review after the full week of riding this, I'm just hoping the weather's going to play ball, it's getting towards this mid-September, so it's possible the weather could turn on us at any time, so I'm hoping I'm going to get a decent amount of time riding this and then I'll bring you another video and let you know what I think to it, how I found it during that week of running this machine, if you're not subscribed please consider subscribing to the channel, click the subscribe button and if you tick that bell you'll be notified of all future uploads I make and you'll see it in your YouTube feed, so thanks for watching, big thanks to Ducati UK for lending me this incredible bike, I mean this is a £25,000 motorcycle, with this electronic suspension and this S model, £25,000, so massive thanks to Ducati UK for loaning me this and entrusting me this into my care for the next week, but there we go guys, thanks for watching, ride safe and I will see you soon, cheers guys! I've never dropped a bike before in my life!