hyperstradas in production and already in USA!!

Some good info there.

The size thing is starting to worry me, the whole idea behind this kind of bike was to get a little bit more room than the street triple I had (cycle ergo puts them at about the same, what little feedback there is seems to confirm).

Just heard from my dealer about his experience riding the Strada and Sp in Palm Springs. He thinks the Strada is going to sell well and told his boss he better get more on order. He said there is nothing your going to miss on the old Hyper. He said it is "extremely agile and usable","power is very potent when needs to be and pulls longer up top like the liquid cooled 4 valve motors". The ABS was flawless and smooth. Most of the riders liked the softness of the Strada over the aggressive stance of the SP. He said he pushed the Strada pretty hard and still was not at the limit. He did say Ducati tried to keep the dealers under control and told them to wait for the Demos to arrive before trying to find the limits. Oh, he said the seat is very comfortable. Based on his comments of the SP, I think the Hyper 1100 crowd will like this one. A bit more edge from my take of his comments. Must be getting close to assigning Vin numbers. He said he will forward the info once it comes in. The bike should arrive late April.

Theres some good words there!

I also just spoke with the sales manager at my dealer here in Ottawa, Ontario, who was part of the dealer test crew in California. What I was told echoes everything that Stradasphere says above. The dealer rep is a sport bike rider but unequivocally preferred the Hyperstrada to the SP. He said the comfort add ons and higher bars took absolutely nothing away from the performance of the bike. He also praised the power, brakes and rider modes. He said don't let the "tour" look fool you; it's still a "hooligan bike" first and foremost, which was what I was hoping to hear.

He certainly didn't speak poorly of the SP; he had a lot of positive things to say about it too, but felt it was a little too focussed for his tastes, but to be fair, that's precisely what it's made for.

Oh yes: he confirmed an April delivery for me. Granted, he couldn't say when in April, but at least not May or worse!