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I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. While a certain orange clad set of people from Austria have been disguising gritted-teeth grimaces as smiles since November 2023. That’s when Ducati unveiled the Ducati Hypermotard 698 Mono — with the most powerful production single-cylinder motor in the world, a title that KTM held for its 690cc LC4 engine for a long, long time. For my part, I’ve been slowly stewing in anticipation, waiting to get my hands on the Mono. Why? Because I believe, even for a hot-blooded company like Ducati, it takes more passion to build a mad single like this than an all-conquering superbike. And the result is mono cylinder mirth delivered desmo style.

Within a few minutes of riding the bike, I knew that this was not a machine for beginners. Ducati might be famous for its L-twins and V4s, and this might be ‘just’ a single, but it’s every bit as potently rabid as you’d expect a performance-chasing Ducati to be. On one occasion, the Mono flew past 170 kph, and it suddenly felt like I was on Harry Potter’s broom with a handlebar. The Mono’s narrow, tall and light physique is quite unique, and is easily the most honest rendition of the supermotard genre to ever go on sale in India.

That Superquadro Mono motor, a 659cc gem that produces 77.5 bhp and 6.42 kgm, and revs till a hair-raising 10,250 rpm, is easily the delinquent star of this chaotic show. Add the optional ‘track only’ Termignoni exhausts and the Mono will make 84.5 bhp — for a bike that weighs 151 kg without fuel, those are some serious numbers, eh?! No wonder, then, that the more I looked at the Mono, the more it appeared to be a machine built around a stonking motor, with two fat wheels, a long seat and a ’bar thrown in just to get going. And how it went.

At around 3000 rpm, the big single lumpiness vanished, leaving only a smooth and rapid short stroke run to the redline. The typical whirs and clicks of a desmodromic head were always present, leaving no doubt as to where this bike was made. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bell in Borgo Panigale’s local church is also timed by a desmo mechanism. However, given a single’s inherent nature, I did have to work the gearbox to keep the Mono from jerking around like a cheap rodeo machine at a mall. The good thing was that the light clutch and the easy shift action made this as easy as possible.

Kept in the right rev zones, the Mono was entertainment itself. The twin exhausts made all the right noises on the throttle that I kept thanking Ducati for; if it had just a single pipe, I bet it’d have simply sounded rather one-dimensional, if you know what I mean. Off the throttle going down the gears, the Mono’s twin pipes went ‘poof poof’ and not ‘pop, rumble, pop’, which may not sound very exotic, but it was again amusing enough to keep me laughing. There was torque everywhere my right hand looked, and the Mono was just a twitch of the throttle away from turning into a red blur. And never have I been more thankful for electro-nannies!

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On the Mono, the electronics aren’t afterthought-gimmicks, but an absolute necessity — without the various software acronyms, I wouldn’t have survived the handful of days I had the bike. However, the selection of said acronyms was a bit fiddly, so I set the following levels of intervention on the first day and never looked at them again: wheelie control and traction control to level 1, engine-brake control and ABS to level 4, riding mode set to Sport, and that was that. Nonetheless, the Mono was so composed and compliant, I didn’t really feel any electronic intrusion while riding. Or maybe that’s how good Ducati’s coding is now.

As with the electronics, I set the front fork to its stiffest setting and left it that way for the duration of the test. Why? Well, because the first time I braked really hard on the Mono, the amount of dive from the front fork almost saw me looking at the tarmac instead of straight ahead. However, even at its stiffest, the Mono’s suspension was more than capable of handling Mumbai’s crater-laden roads. The flat seat, though, was good for about an hour, no more. And those red plastics already looked like they were off a five-year-old Honda, not something you’d expect on a Ducati. However, complaining about these things on a motorcycle like the Mono is missing the point.

This is the real Hypermotard. And regardless of the levels of intervention or riding modes or suspension settings, the Mono did spectacular justice to the ‘hyper’ in its name. There was no speed at which the Mono didn’t offer more; why anyone would need more performance than this in the real world is beyond me. The brakes were properly sharp and strong, too, encouraging more and more liberal use of the throttle. It slinked through traffic like any commuter you’ve ever ridden. And the wheelies, they just happened, mostly in second gear; the reason you don’t see any here is because I was never brave enough to actively provoke them. Maybe next time.

Also, for someone who’s always loved the idea of a proper supermotard, I had a tough time putting the Mono through a corner. It could be done dirt-bike style or as if I was on a supersport, but I could never quite figure out which one felt better. The Pirelli Diablo Rosso IV tyres didn’t seem to care much either way and had endless grip, so I resorted to taking left turns like a dirt bike and right turns like a sportsbike. If I ever go to a track day on the Mono, I bet people behind me will crash laughing. But that’s the flexibility of a supermotard, no?

Ultimately, the Ducati Hypermotard 698 Mono is nothing like Ducati’s ever made. It feels very much like a passion project, and has little regard for practicality. The focus here is on performance, both the bike’s and its rider’s, and if anyone ever reaches the edge of that envelope they will have reached a serious level indeed. And I can’t help but wonder what else Ducati has planned with this motor, even if it’s more than likely that any bike based on it will never really stand a realistic chance in India.

That’s because its price is as hilarious as the Mono’s performance (it’s more expensive than the Hypermotard 950 twin!), but there’s nothing anyone can do about that. All I know is that I want that outstanding engine in my own life at some point. And all we can do for now is watch the fight that’s bound to entertain every true motorcyclist around the world. Over to you, Mattighofen.