The Ducati Monster Turns 20

The beast that ate Bologna!

They raised me Catholic back there in the Midwestern ’burb, but parochial school was too expensive, so every Saturday morning, it was off to catechism class. While the other kids watched cartoons on all three channels, I learned about the wages of sin and memorized all your popular prayers, motivated by the knowledge that failure would lead to the fiery pit for eternity. Warm would be good, at least. My dad had a preference for American Motors vehicles; the strain of the Ambassador’s starter motor working against those winter mornings only added to the dread as our AMC delivered us from evil through the dirty snow. The school building was as cold as Ann Coulter’s exercise bike, drafty and nobody ever changed the urinal cakes. The girls were maturing faster and seemed even angrier about losing their Saturdays; impending puberty hung in the air and had the nuns on DEFCON 1 constantly, rulers poised. We’re not here to have fun, kids, in this vale of tears. Motorcycles? Those are for people who don’t want to wait in line to greet Satan. Inspired by the church, then later by Bob Dylan, I joined the Army. It wanted to send me to California. How could I argue?
I’d never seen a Ducati in the flesh ’til I got to Monterey (an ’81 Pantah 500SL), and I never rode one ’til 10 years later. The 900SS wasn’t that cruel in its intended habitat, but serving as ground transportation in the SoCal rat race was not really its mission. Running free through mountain passes was more its thing, a weekend toy for the wealthy secularist. The same was true of the 851: Clutches would complain; temperatures would rise when you got stuck in traffic. During those times, hours spent penitent and/or in foxholes served you well. Embrace the pain. A familiarity with sacrifice was good preparation for Ducati ownership (or borrowship, in my case). In fact, all serious sportbikes were like that. Fiery performance required a little masochism and the kind of firm glutes you got from forced marches.

I’m not sure what happened, but a few years in the California sunshine purged a lot of dank guilt from my soul. The sap was rising in the early ’90s; Mr. Gorbachev did tear down the Wall, and the economy was booming. We were all snapping up condos, getting married and breeding, eating and drinking heartily; I wore tortoise-shell Wayfarers to fend off the glare of my bright future. When Ducati launched the Monster in ’93 (photo at right), it was a shocker that, in fact, made perfect sense and hit the zeitgeist right on the head: Have we not at long last suffered enough? What are we atoning for anyway? This thing had all the flair and performance of a 900SS, but it didn’t make you crawl on your knees and grovel like every other Ducati we’d ever ridden. It was red and definitely Italian but stupidly practical and fun to ride anywhere, thanks to the obvious-in-hindsight substitution of a simple handlebar where Ducati had always affixed low clip-ons before. Now, you could sit up and look traffic in the eye and dare it to flatten you. (Just kidding, traffic!) Maybe our God wasn’t all that vengeful after all?
Other practical sporty bikes of the time included the highly forgettable (but really good) Katana 750, enclosed in the bold graphics of those years. Boldly ugly. Honda’s CB1000 was a good effort, but it was 100 pounds heavier than the Monster. The Monster threw Cycle World into a tizzy. Where does it fit? Is it a cruiser? One motorcycle singlehandedly blew up a few of our beloved boxes.
It’s kind of a blur, but I partied a few times with guys who looked like Jesus and decided the fiery pit was just made up to scare people who’d never been married. Why should we not remove our fairings and do what feels good if it doesn’t harm others? Now that Ducati had knocked down the door, here came Triumph with the Speed Triple. Suddenly, the Japanese stranglehold was broken, and Euro trash was taking over the neighborhood. Soon, we were awash in Bonnevilles and Streetfighters, KTM Dukes (why is there no Duchess?), and Brutales—and the naked S1000RR BMW’s about to launch could be good, too.

We didn’t know it at the time, and neither did Ducati, but the Monster, as you’ve no doubt already heard, would be the bike that finally made Ducati a profitable company instead of a wheezy old-world institution on perpetual life support. Did the Monster revitalize the European motorcycle indus­try? That might be a stretch but only a small one. Before it first appeared at the Cologne show in ’92, Ducati had planned to build just 1,000 bikes. Its reception was so positive that the company decided to build 5,000. In the ensuing two decades, Ducati says it’s sold more than 250,000 Monsters.
Later and all too predictably came the hubris and the economic collapse. I lost it all investing in tasteful do-rags and suspenderless pant technology for BMW riders, but the Monster had at least taught me that a second act is always possible. Twenty years on, this 20th Anniversary Edition Monster isn’t much more expensive than the $8,950 original M900, and it does pack even more performance. But, and excuse me for saying it, it’s showing its age—maybe a little too much Botox. There’s another Ducati that puts a spring in my step now. Cycle World’s pick for Best Middleweight Streetbike for the past two years running, Ducati’s own 848 Streetfighter, makes 132 horses, is almost as torquey down low, is more comfortable, rides and handles better, and looks as fresh as the original Monster did. And though it’s got eight valves instead of four, Ducati says they only need to be inspected every 15,000 miles instead of every 7,500.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen the spy shots of the new liquid-cooled Monster and are reserving judgment. The Panigale’s doing okay but not great in the showroom, but it’s found no success in World Superbike racing. Speaking of no success, don’t even ask about Ducati’s MotoGP team. So, no pressure, new Monster, and happy birthday!

Hard to believe that 20 years have passed since the original Monster of 1993. Or since Burns channeled Chandler in “Monster Story,” a classic feature from our October issue that year.