Ducati is returning to Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for 2018, with plans to reclaim its title as King of the Mountain. To do so, Ducati has enlisted the help of former outright record-holder Carlin Dunne, as well as current middleweight record-holder Codie Vahsholtz.
In their assault to the top of Pikes Peak, Dunne and Vahsholtz will be riding modified Ducati Multistrada 1260 Pikes Peak motorcycles. Wanting to know more about these beasts, we reached out Ducati North America, to see what light they could shed on the v-twin race bikes.
They came back to us with an interesting list of changes, to make these the fastest Multistradas you have ever seen.
Both of these bikes started life as normal production machines, straight from the Bologna factory. From there, Ducati put the Multistrada 1260 Pikes Peak on a diet, removing the headlights, taillights, handguards, and engine protection from the street bike.
From there, Ducati swapped in forged magnesium wheels from OZ Racing, a custom titanium exhaust from Termignoni, and special Öhlins suspension pieces that have been modified by the folks at Race Tech.
The forged magnesium wheels will have a two-fold effect. One, they will reduced the unsprung weight on the Multistradas, improving suspension response. And two, they will decrease the rotational inertia of the motorcycle, which will improve handling.
Moving on, Termignoni’s full-titanium exhaust not only helps reduce the overall weight of the race bikes, but more importantly the exhausts will help the 1,262cc DVT engines to breath at the substantial elevations that come with Colorado’s “Race to the Clouds”, thus maximizing power.
The suspension pieces are perhaps the most interesting modification that Ducati will admit to though, with suspension tuners Race Tech modifying the front Öhlins forks and TTX shock so that they can allow for ride height adjustment, along with other performance adjustments.
Also of note is the front braking system, which uses Brembo M50 calipers and the stock rotors, mated to a WorldSBK-spec master cylinder. To help with cornering clearance, Rizmo has created special rearsets for the Multistrada 1260s. Lastly, Ducati has turned to Shell for its lubrication needs.
One can also expect Ducati to have tinkered with the software on the Ducati Multistrada 1260 Pikes Peak, likely writing new code for the various bike computers, to take advantage of the modifications made, as well as to ignore the emissions standards that come courtesy of the EPA and Euro4 emission standards.
It doesn’t hurt too that the Pikes Peak edition race bikes are lookers too.
Photos: Ducati
