Sportbike attitude with a cafe racer soul

It’s safe to say that Radical Ducati is, well, was a favorite builder around the Bullitt garage and I have to say I was shocked to find out that we had never featured the 7 ½ Sportiva by the Spanish garage. I went to look it up on the blog here to show to a buddy and couldn’t believe we hadn’t featured it. Sure, we shared a picture of it when Radical Ducati closed their doors but this one is deserves its own feature.

This to me is a modern cafe racer. Taking a (relatively) modern bike, in this case a 2004 Ducati 749R, and stripping it down to the bare essentials. Clip-ons, a fiberglass bum stop, 2-into-1 upswept exhaust and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a fun little café.

With performance always top of mind, Pepo and Reyes removed anything unnecessary and upgraded any component on the 7½ Sportiva to top notch materials. Öhlins suspension front and rear keeps the forged Marchesini wheels planted, and the upgraded Brembo braking system helps slow things down when need be.

As usual, lots of the components like the subframe, seat & front fairing, are all Radical Ducati bits.

A Wolfman 2-into-1 exhaust is finished off with a Spark megaphone. Aside from the magnesium head covers, the motor is the stock Ducati 749R unit.

I recall when I first saw the offset, endurance-style single front headlight it wasn’t my favorite. Now I’ve come to really appreciate the uniqueness of it.

I’ve got a buddy thinking about getting rid of his 749 at the moment and have to say that the 7½ Sportiva has me thinking twice. Is this a bike you’d like to have in your arsenal?