Avventura! Avventura!

Ducati DesertX

BY JOHN SHARRARD PHOTOS BY BEN QUINN

When I first laid eyes on the DesertX at Ducati’s Canadian headquarters, I couldn’t contain my goofy smile. I hadn’t had a chance to google any images or info on the bike since getting the call from the Inside Motorcycles command central asking if I was interested in testing Ducati’s new open-class adventure bike, so its appearance was a pleasant shock.

Yes, I had seen scores of Multistradas come into our shop for set up or lowering, but I had never fallen in love with the model. The early ones were, ahem, a little visually challenged as Ducati tried to morph their amazing sport bike building ability into the adventure market, but the later versions became downright stunning in appearance. The Multistradas remained heavily biased towards the street though, with some gravel road capability. They offered Italian brand appeal to all those street riders that didn’t want to be folded up onto a pure sport bike, and who maybe wanted to venture off the pavement occasionally.

This DesertX I was looking at though, was way different. The adventure market is growing, with Yamaha’s Super Ténéré and Honda’s Africa Twin, along with similar models from Kawasaki and the others capturing some of the riders that didn’t fit the BMW GS mould. History has shown though, that most buyers are quite brand loyal and will prefer to stay with a manufacturer or dealer that they have had a successful relationship with. So, the release of the Ducati DesertX offered the Italian brand a dirt-focused, off-road capable bike for their existing customer base, as well as another option for those looking outside of Germany or Japan for their next adventure bike.

Most adventure bike builders compromise their design as their engineers try to make it as good as they can on both the street and the dirt. The demands of these two terrains are so different that the bikes often become a weak Swiss Army knife that can pull off just about anything, but not do either very well. They usually turn out to be overweight mushy dirt bikes that work just okay on the street. This new Ducati is quite different. With a 21-inch front tire and 18-inch rear wheel and nearly 10 inches of ground clearance, make no mistake, this is an off-road bike first!

When Ducati showed a concept of the DesertX at the 2019 EICMA show they had seemed to focus their sights squarely on building a good off-road bike with high-quality componentry first, and realized that with enough power, gearing and the right tires it would be good on the street too! This strategy has really produced a winner in my opinion. Tick off all the boxes to make an excellent offroad bike, and if it has the legs and the fuel range it should be very good on the street too.

Ducati is very proud of the decision to focus this model as an off-road specific machine with its design routes traced back to the Dakar Rally. They have even released a line of clothing entitled the 21/18 Capsule, highlighting the dirt-biased wheel sizes in the branding, now that’s hard core.

With the DesertX, Ducati delivers a true off-road focused machine with a 21-inch front wheel (above left) and fully-adjustable KYB suspension (above left and centre) providing nine inches of travel and nearly 10 inches of ground clearance. The addition of a specifically tuned Testastretta 11 L-twin engine (above centre) adds to the bike’s overall off-road capabilities while the impossible-to-miss LED daytime running lights (above right) provide a reminder that function and style can co-exist.

Ducati paired with the Japanese suspension supplier KYB for the 46 mm front fork and oversize shock. KYB is known to produce some of the best off-road dampers used historically by Yamaha and Kawasaki and also supplying other brands with suspension when they want a premium offering. In keeping with the dirt theme, the travel is a staggering 230 mm in front and 220 mm in the rear which straddles the 9-inch mark, and is more than most adventure bikes. Both fork and shock are adjustable for compression, rebound and preload to correct the bike for various rider weights and support the ability to adjust the damping for different riding paces and terrains.

The DesertX sports Brembo monoblock radial mount calipers that offer amazing stopping power and one finger modulation in the single track. The monster 320 mm front rotors squeezed by the four-piston calipers are top drawer components on a modern Superbike, let alone a fairly light dirt bike. I was a little worried about the brakes being too grabby or too strong, but this concern of excess power was unfounded as I could accomplish tasks like holding the forks compressed in the single track dirt trails as I added throttle, with just one finger on the lever with no problem. Out back, perfect control is available over the 265 mm rotor with another Brembo caliper, this one a floating style with two outboard pistons. An opposed piston caliper is hard to pull off with the proximity of the spokes, but this system works great.

The seating position and handlebar position are intuitive and feel like a ‘dirt’ bike, working well for me while either seated or standing. The brake pedal has a quick adjustable toe pad that has a high and low setting to accommodate sitting/standing or a taller or shorter rider without getting out the tools.

One thing that kept striking me when riding was how narrow the bike felt (and is!), which is so important in an off-road bike for chassis control. A wide engine just stresses me and is always on my mind as I navigate trees and rocks, but this version of the 937 cc Testastretta 11 engine uses Ducati’s L format which places the cylinders one behind the other, keeping the engine as narrow as any single cylinder engine in a competition dirt bike. An ‘L’ engine, which can often run without a counterbalancer, is longer of course, which can cause handling and wheelbase limitations, but Ducati believes the payoffs are worth it for the engine in terms of packaging benefits to the fuel injection and fuel location, with benefits like smooth power delivery and enhanced tire grip. The ‘11’ designation has nothing to do with Stranger Things, but is referring to the cam timing, and its design goal of reduced valve overlap between the two exhaust and two intake valves per cylinder. A reduced valve overlap definitely costs the engine peak power at maximum rpm, but it also makes the engine very smooth, fuel efficient and moves the torque down to lower rpm, where you spend a lot of time off-road. Also boosting bottom end power is a very high 13.3:1 compression ratio, pointing to a very well ported and efficient combustion chamber, which is required to pull off a ratio that high on standard pump gas. This targeted engine design powers the Ducati to an honest 110 horsepower, which is modest for a litre class street bike, but more than enough for an off-road bike.

Torque though, at almost 70 ft-lb at 6,500 rpm is incredible even for a Superbike! This biasing of the numbers is proof that Ducati is building a killer off-road bike with this engine package, not a super sport track bike, which they have in spades on other pages in their brochure.

Becoming the norm these days, the throttle on the DesertX is ride-by-wire which uses the rider’s inputs at the grip to tell the ECU when and how quickly to open the 53 mm Bosch throttle bodies. This system is perfectly seamless to the rider, but gives Ducati the ability to manage the standards of air/fuel compensation, adjustable traction control (DTC), wheelie control (DWC), engine braking control (much different than anti-lock brakes), a quick shifter, cornering ABS, and cruise control. Selectable engine drive modes include Sport, Touring, Urban and Wet, and have preprogrammed parameters of the electronic settings above, with appropriately matched engine power levels for the street, while the two off-road modes (Enduro and Rally) have parameters geared for the dirt. These impressive options are all adjustable with the five-inch TFT colour display showing the drive modes, speed, rpm, trip and odometer settings that change priorities between the modes… very cool. The display is uniquely tall and narrow not unlike a smartphone, and stacks the information vertically to help when standing. The dash is also ready for integration with the optional Ducati Multimedia System that allows you to connect your smartphone via Bluetooth and activate turn-byturn navigation by receiving directions directly to the dashboard.

A rather unique safety feature on the bike is a rapid pulsing of the LED rear brake light activated under extreme braking force to really grab attention behind you in the event of an emergency stop. The headlights, tail light and turn signals are all LED for low power consumption and extreme visibility, further underlying the all-terrain, all-weather nature of the new Ducati.

In the saddle, the bike was an absolute pleasure to ride, allowing me to gain confidence and quickly adapt to the engine, brakes, riding position and controls. The bike seems intuitive after a very short time, giving the feeling that you have owned it for years. My only complaint with the bike, really wasn’t at all with the bike. As we had focused our testing entirely off-road, my only issue was with the tires. The rubber fitted from Ducati is a great choice for pavement with a gentle curved profile and deep grooves in the smooth carcass, which give good grip on pavement and predictable traction on gravel, with minimal to no vibration at higher speeds. On hard packed dirt however, the tires struggled for edge grip and spun easily on hard throttle. I didn’t get the chance to play with tire pressures, so I am sure I could have made a decent improvement by adjusting that for my terrain. The OEM supplied tires are an excellent choice for pavement and gravel riding, but if your adventures take you a little further off-road, options abound thanks to Ducati’s selection of the 18- and 21-inch rim sizes.

So, if you are lucky enough to get your name on one of these Ducati DesertX motorcycles, prepare to be amazed. You really will have one of the most advanced, capable adventure bikes on the planet, no matter where the off-road leads you! IM