I'm out on a roadtrip on my 09 monster 696. Currently 1500km from home. I did a 900km day yesterday with no issues, and another 550km today with no issues, then when I was just 50 km from my destination, my bike started acting up.

I was cruising at about 130km/h, 5500rpm or so. Rather suddenly, it started doing very jarring hesitations. Very brief, like the gas cut off all together for a split second then back on.  I held pace, and it did it a few more times before I reduced speed down to 115km/h, 5000rpm, and the bike seemed fine.

Cruised at that speed for a while, then tried again to increase speed. Once again at 5500rpm at 130, the bike started hesitating and jolting me around.

No idea what it could be. Dirty spark plugs? Bad gas? (Friends sv650 on the same gas had no issues though).

2009 monster 696, 21,000km, dp performance ECU, termis. Never had any issues like this before.

Any ideas?

Dirty fuel filter?

Why would it happen so specifically at one rpm though, if it was fuel filter?

I just took the bike for another 20min test ride today. Once it was warm, it started doing the hesitating/violent bucking at 6000 rpm. Didn't seem to matter about gear/speed. And it didn't do it every single time either. Sometimes I would roll past 6k with no issue.

Really need some more suggestions, if anyone's out there. I'm 1200km from the nearest ducati dealer at this point.

Bad coil, bad plug wire, bad plug

How many k's did you roll after experiencing the problem?

Could it be a sprocket problem? I've see that symptom when someone was missing teeth and the chain would "jerk" when the sprocket kicked back in. Rolling at 5k rpm could just be a sweet spot where the inertia of the wheel keeps up with the chain so you don't experience it, or experience it to a far lesser degree.

Good luck on the issue regardless  

Thanks for the suggestion, though definitely not sprocket related. Front sprocket is pretty new cause I did a swap 5,000 ago and rear has lots of life left in it. I should add that I'm not specifically hard on the throttle when this happens, also happens when just cruising.

I'm leaning towards something ignition related. If it was fuel related then I figure I'd be experiencing problems at various rpms, similar to when running out of gas.

Will check everything I can spark-related tomorrow morning or Sunday. Return trip on the bike isn't until Wednesday/Thursday.

Replace the fuel filter.  I had a Monster S4RS behave just this way recently from nothing more than a dirty fuel filter.  Fuel pressure dropped under one specific loading condition and the bike "hit a wall" until it came back up as loading changed.

Besides, it's probably the least expensive possibility you're facing.