NCR Leggera

Italian bike builder NCR has unveiled its first street-legal motorcycle, which it dubs the Leggera. Based off the Ducati Hypermotard, the Leggera is modded with high-end components and aftermarket tweaks. the Leggera is sure to make any "motard" aficionado's mouth water.

One major feature on the Leggera is its trellis frame. Although it looks similar to that on the Hypermotard, this tubular frame and subframe design is constructed out of Grade 9 Titanium, not steel. The titanium chassis components add up to a net weight of 14 lbs - 10.6 lbs for the frame and 3.3 lbs for the subframe. Toss in the Leggera's sexy BST carbon fiber wheels and the new NCR claims a remarkable dry weight of 328 lbs - that's 62 lbs lighter than the 390-lb Hypermotard!

The Hypermotard's Marzocchi fork and Öhlins shock is upgraded on the Leggera to an all-Öhlins configuration, with the Swedish firm supplying the fork, steering damper and monoshock. Keeping the Öhlins fork in place are billet fork bottoms and adjustable upper and lower triple clamps all built in-house by NCR. The Italian firm also fabricates the adjustable rear sets and passenger pegs out of titanium, as well as the billet fuel cap (all of which are aftermarket parts Hypermotard owners can order to customize their own Ducs).

Bringing the Leggera to a halt are top-line radial-mount Brembo monobloc units. The four-piston, two-pad calipers bite down on a pair of 300mm Braking wave rotors up front. A 200mm rotor and two-piston caliper take care of things in the rear, also a Braking/Brembo combination.

An NCR-designed carbon fiber exhaust connects to the Ducati 1100 L-Twin powering the regular Hypermotard. Regarding the Legerra's power, at a claimed 90 horsepower in "stock" trim NCR assures "the 90 Hp comes alive when it only has 149 kg (328 lbs) to move around."

For those who have triple-digit hp requests, NCR offers up two race kit options. The first is an NCR Corse kit that beefs up the displacement from 1100 to 1160cc, with a corresponding 35 hp jump in power to its 125 horsepower claim.

Still not enough?

The second "for racing use only" kit entails replacing the hyper Hypermotard mill with the full-on attention deficit disorder NCR Course 1200 engine. In this configuration, the Leggera's peak horsepower claim rises up to a remarkable 132 hp. The use of a billet crank and titanium rods and valves in the NCR mill also drops the weight another 25 lbs to 297 lbs. This mondo version of the Leggera is further enhanced by Titanium exhaust and carbon fiber slipper clutch.

So to sum up, this NCR Course 1200 version of the Legerra is a Ducati Hypermotard, but with an extra 42 ponies and 93-lb lighter weight. In other words, there ain't enough Ritalin in the world to calm down this hyper-NCR Leggera!

The sticker price delivers an awful sting, with the Leggera tech sheet listing the starting MSRP at $46,200 for the base model. Still a "motard" fan can dream can't they?