Another major milestone in my life: I finally got myself a motorcycle.

Always wanted one but either the time or the circumstance (finances, or girlfriend, or both) didn’t allow it. Coming from the demise of a 7-year relationship, ¹ Remind me never to joke about the 7-year itch, ever. this could definitely be an effective part of my [retail] therapy. It would also, once and for all, make sure the next woman wouldn’t have a say in the matter. So there is some half-full thing that could be had in this – like with every other aspect of life.

Anyways, enough with the bickering – let’s just get to the details 🙂

Why a Ducati?

Why Ducati? Well for me, if I’m ever going to have only one motorcycle (which as of this moment is probably going to be the case, I figured to get one I really wanted.

To be fair, I also did consider Japanese side of the fence since I heard that maintenance/repair of their machines would be easier down the road – especially in the Philippines. The trouble is the only appealing Japanese bikes for me were their sportbikes.

Let’s face it: I’m not getting any younger. I thought it prudent to stop deluding myself that I’d be comfortable in a race (hunched) position as the years piled on my body. What I needed was an honest to goodness cruiser or street bike.

So now that I’ve eliminated sportbikes entirely from the menu, I could now decide on focusing on the “look” again. I understand the preference for a motorcycle’s look is a very subjective thing. So for now, let’s just say that that these were the bikes that appealed to me.

One was the Harley Davidson Night Rod; the Ducati Diavel or Monster; the Yamaha Warrior or VMax.

It was easy to drop Yamaha (and probably any Japanese brand) because of one simple personal preference: the wow factor. All the bikes (sport or otherwise) I was considering were all high performance. In short, any bike I would’ve ended up with would’ve been a great choice – so it really just boiled down to personal preference – and as far as my preference went, it was summed up by what someone said about Ducatis:

Most supersport bikes basically look the same. Definitely there will still be people (who are privy to the differences of these bikes) who’ll look if you ride in a Yamaha R1, Honda CBR1000, or Kawasaki ZX.

But if you ride in any Ducati, EVERYONE looks.

Of course being a biased comment, one would have to add a Harley into the mix as they are just as unique looking as the Ducks. Long story short; it was down to the Europeans and the Americans.

Harley Davidson was next to go based on sheer practicality ² Sourcing, price tax on unit, servicing/maintenance, mileage in Philippine traffic., etc. – which left me with Ducati – which worked for me; the Italian brand always had appealed to me over the Harley anyways. Perhaps I just believe that Europeans make better vehicles in general.

Why a Monster?

To be perfectly honest, if money was no object, and I had to choose solely on looks. These would be my only three choices:

With the Harley out of running, it left me with the Diavel and the Monster to choose from. Soon I had to begrudgingly let go of the Diavel because it was too damn big. I’m a 5’6″ asian, as painful as it is to admit, but with these bikes, I found out that rider proportion matters just as much.

It’s sorta like short MTBers riding 29ers. Only with the MTBs, there are actual performance/comfort gains that could be made when shifting to the bigger wheel – so you can justify the goofy looking proportions. 29″ bikes still try to retain pretty much the same relative distance between the rider and the bike components, and most importantly, the ground – only with bigger tyres.

With motorbikes this is not necessarily the case, the bigger it is – the harder it’ll be for the rider to work with the bike’s geometry in general – and if you fall over, being on a much heavier machine could also aggravate things.

Why a 795?

The 795 is a newly released unit in the Monster family catered to the asian market. The “asian spec” part is a big part of why I chose it. But before we discuss the 795, let’s discuss the visual differences in what people consider to be the three pillars of the current Monster lineup: the 696, 796, and 1100. Particularly, their swing arms (where the rear tires are mounted) and exhausts.

Basically, the 696 is different from the 796 and 1100 in that the latter two use a single-sided swing arm (SSS). It really is exactly as it says, so I don’t know how more to explain the concept.

On the exhaust; the 1100 has both exhausts coming out low on one side (by the rear tire), whereas the 696 and 796 have theirs above the tires, below the pillion, on opposite sides.

Personally, the 796 is the best looking of all: It’s got the SSS, and its exhausts are symmetrically placed on opposite sides – which I think, is better because the visual presence of the exhaust, for me, is an integral part of motorbike’s look – having it on one side means when people view your bike on the opposite side, they will not see exhaust pipes at all – which looks kind of awkward IMHO.

However, everyone says the 696 is the best Ducati beginner’s bike – it’s probably the easiest to handle given its dimensions. It’s got the smallest frame out of all the Monsters, and it’s got a modest displacement ideal for beginners.

As far as power was concerned, I know the 696’s displacement is probably more than enough given the type of riding I’m going to do (not to mention the roads I’m going to be riding in) – but it’s always nice to know that you have a little bit more than what you need just in case I grew to a more advanced rider that needed more power. So the 803cc displacement of the 796 seemed to be a nice thing to have – only that the 796 and the EVO are bigger than the 696. Even on a 696 I was already tiptoeing a bit if I want both feet to touch the ground ³ And I didn’t want to cheat by adjusting the seat height by compromising the suspension, though I do intend to buy a “low seat” as soon as I can – what more with the bigger bikes.

Luckily, the 795 has the power of the 796 – packed into a 696 frame – which means in terms of “performance” you’re basically on a 796 – but with the dimensions of a 696 – which is why it’s said to cater to asians specifically. That, and the fact that it’s the first model that ever came from Ducati’s factory in Thailand, the duties/taxes/shipping give the unit a considerably cheaper SRP (about PhP200k cheaper) than all other Monsters including the 696.

The massive “discount” allowed me to customize my bike a whole lot (which I’ll be discussing in a later post). Sufficed to say, after comparing what I was missing from the 796 (SSS, etc.), to what I got to “add” on the 795 – the “trade-off” turned out to be more than worth it.