I tested both, thruxton first. The best way I can come up with to describe it is slippery and tall. With that (very hard) classic style seat and low small fuel tank you don't really sit into the bike as much as you sit ontop of it. It definately stretches you out more with the bars close in and forward and the pegs slightly back but it still manages to feel tall (that's not to say that its hard to touch the ground, but rather the cg is tall and it feels unstable) being as used to older bikes as I am where everything has a very positive action and reaction; the Thruxton was very distant and vauge, when you rev the motor it makes more of a light wheezing sound as opposed to a rumble (it seems where ducati tried to tune thier pipes to be quiet enough but still sound rough... triumph just tuned them to be quiet), the foot brake feels like a tree stump (I couldn't tell if my foot had hung up on a bolt in the casing or if I was actually hitting the brake for its' lack of feedback) It was plenty fast (in my standards) and turned in nicely but it was simply hard to trust it... something you'd probably get used to.
The Ducati on the other hand was a whole different story from the turn of the key when she starts to rumble (I love twins... that sound like twins) with a more sculpured seat and larger tank you instantly feel more stable. The only complaint I can give about the Ducati is its size, at somewhere around 6'1" when I first rode it off the lot and had my legs tight into the crevices of the tank actuating the foot brake "popped" my knee above the crease that it fit so well into (weird to describe) In the beggining it was annoying, 15min into the ride it was noticeable, by the time I had returned to the dealer it was all but forgotten and by that night the problem was dealt with (I'm not sure how I deal with it now, I guess I just don't hug the tank as hard or move my whole leg out if I want to grab the rear brake) The bigger monsters... the s2r and s4r are physically bigger and might fit a little more ideally, but that's not what I wanted (or what I wanted to spend)
Dispite all this the Thruxton wasn't really that bad and all the problems that I ran into are things that would just take getting used to. The biggest reason for going with the Ducati was the fact that it's so different then all my other bikes... the position is very straight and comfortable and it's fuel injected, so when I just want to go ride I'll grab the Ducati, when I want to feel like a racer I'll take one of my classics.
