The Ducati Hypermotard 698 Mono: The Hottest New Single In Town!

The most powerful single-cylinder engine in the world has found its first home! Ducati has launched the Hypermotard 698 Mono in standard and RVE variants. The standard variant gets the Ducati Red colour scheme while the RVE gets the Graffiti livery. 

The mad hooligan bike is powered by Ducati's first single-cylinder engine in 30 years, the 659cc, liquid-cooled Superquadro Mono producing 77.5PS at 9,750rpm and 63Nm at 8,000rpm. It gets a bore and stroke of 116 x 62.4mm and a compression ratio of 13.1:1 with Desmodromic valve timing. With a Termignoni exhaust only for track-use, the power figures go up to 85PS at 9,500rpm! This is now the world’s most powerful single-cylinder engine on a production motorcycle. For perspective, the then most powerful single, the KTM 690 Duke, made around 74PS and 73.8Nm. Also, the only other large-capacity single-cylinder supermoto, the KTM 690 SMC R, makes 74.7PS and 73.5Nm. 

The gearbox is a 6-speed unit with slipper clutch and the bi-directional quickshifter comes as standard on the RVE model while it is an option on the standard model. The supermoto gets a tubular steel trellis frame linked to a 45mm Marzocchi fully-adjustable USD fork and a fully-adjustable Sachs monoshock suspension setup. The braking setup consists of a front 330mm disc with Brembo M4.32 caliper and a rear 245mm disc with single piston floating caliper and four-level Bosch Cornering ABS as standard. 

The Hypermotard 698 Mono gets 17-inch wheels at both ends with Y-shaped 5-spoke alloys and comes shrouded with grippy yet hoon-friendly Pirelli Diablo Rosso IV tyres. And oh, the bike weighs just 151kg (wet weight without fuel)! Even with fuel and other required liquids, it’ll mostly come around the 160kg mark, which is still very light. To give you an idea on how light it is, the Bajaj Pulsar NS160 weighs 152kg kerb!

Features-wise, it gets a small 3.8-inch LCD instrument console, three power modes (high - 77.5PS, super sharp throttle response, medium - 77.5PS but with more linear throttle, and low - 58PS, smooth throttle for low grip surfaces) and four ride modes: Sport, Road, Urban and Wet. Other features include traction control, four-level wheelie control, Engine Brake Control, and Ducati Power Launch to name a few. 

The Ducati Hypermotard 698 Mono is listed on the manufacturer’s UK website with a price tag of £10,995 (around Rs 11.17 lakh), which is the same as the Scrambler 800 Full Throttle variant in the country. While there are no details available as to whether the hooligan is coming to India, the chances of the Hypermotard 698 making it here are low. That’s because it’s still a niche bike, considering its high price for single-cylinder configuration at the end of the day.