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If I didn’t already know that this video was made by some guys in their spare time, I could have sworn that this short film was one of the better efforts by Ducati or Dainese (or anyone in motorcycling for that matter) at some cool videography. The brainchild of , this short video is the work product of several A/V industry professionals who just wanted to mess around with some cameras, a bike, and the open road on their days off from working for the man. Shot around the San Francisco Bay Area, astute eyes will see scenes from San Francisco, Altamont Pass, the Pacific Coast Highway, and other Nor Cal staples.

When you consider how much time, money, and effort went into Ducati’s Diavel ad spot, and the product that came out of that production, it sort of baffles your mind about what’s going on in the motorcycle industry (at least they didn’t hire “a publication of record” to produce it for them). There’s clearly a need in the market for better motorcycle videos, and there’s clearly a market of talented videographers out there to fill the need, Oh, did we mention Barry is looking for a job?

Source: Vimeo

Even before its launch in Milan last year, the 2011 Ducati Diavel has been the talk of the motorcycle industry since its first spy photo was released. It amuses me that Ducati chose to name the Diavel (say: dee-ahh-vole) after the Bolognese word for the devil. The linguistic foreplay from Ducati is just asking for a response from motorcyclists who feel that Bologna company has over-stepped its prescribed branding boundaries, and sold its soul to the Devil of bottom-line thinking.

While rife with metaphor, there is an important financial reason for the genesis of the Ducati Diavel. As I’ve already explained the business reasons behind Ducati’s choice (or non-choice) to make the Diavel in a previous article. My analysis continues from there, and brings us to the question of: How does the Ducati power cruiser ride, 240mm-wide tire and all?

Setting out to the City of Angels (I seriously couldn’t ask for better fodder from Ducati here), I swung a leg over the Ducati Diavel for a day of riding on some of Los Angeles’s finest and most well know routes. The short answer to how the Diavel fared: damningly well.