Few new motorcycles - especially those carving out a daring new niche within their own range - receive universal praise from day one, but Italian firm Ducati’s latest has come close with its latest creation.
The DesertX - a true adventure bike with high-riding suspension, good ground clearance, wide handlebars, long-distance ability - and dramatic, retro style - is such a bike.
What has really impressed its intended audience is the way it has been designed to be such a great performer both on and off road. Most adventure bikes are marketed with images of derring-do; ploughing through mud and water, negotiating rocky outcrops, leaping over logs and so on. Usually at the hands of highly expert riders.
But most adventure bikes spend most of their lives on tarmac, so it’s vital that the designers get this aspect right too. Often this means that they play it safe, erring heavily towards on-road performance, not least by fitting road-friendly 19-inch front wheels to give plenty of response, feel and handling in bends - but reducing the bike’s ability to negotiate rocks, logs and bogs.
Country roads
Ducati controversially decided it could do both things at the same time and somehow pulled it off. It stuck with a more off-road friendly 21-inch front wheel (with an 18-incher at the back) adroitly producing a bike which - while highly able off-road - loves country road bends too. Quite the achievement.
The solid performance of the new Desert X shone through on my own test rides when - delivered in the teeth of horrendous weather - I rode it through torrential rain, high winds, thick carpets of hail and truly freezing conditions. And still arrived home smiling.
So what’s on offer? At the heart of this machine is a lovely, tractable, punchy V-twin of 937 ccs, offering nice dollops of torque (that low-down pulling power that makes riding fun) and 110 bhp, providing gutsy acceleration and a top speed of around 130mph, via chain drive and a slick six-speed gearbox. All packaged into a neat new steel trellis frame.
Spreading this bike’s ability wide, is an array of rider modes, six of them altogether; not just fun to play with and easy to change on the fly, but making the DesertX more versatile too. There’s Touring, Sport, Urban and Wet (the latter two restricting power to 95hp), but also two off-road modes, Enduro and Rally. Each setting tailors power output and throttle response; traction control and ABS are there too, both lean-sensitive. Three different levels of engine braking are available too.
The modes are - unlike on some bikes - easily selected, and flashed up in the nice, clear five-inch TFT screen.
Fortunately, the ‘go’ is matched by the ‘stop’, in the form of one of the grippiest rear brakes I’ve encountered (thanks to a Brembo 2-pot caliper, 265mm disc set-up at the back) and a reassuringly ‘feely’ front brake, too.
Pick up
The excellent suspension is on the firm side, nicely so too, offering confidence in challenging tarmac bends, while being sufficiently pliant over lumps, bumps and potholes too. The test machine arrived barely run-in, with only 250 or so miles on the clock and in showroom condition, deterring any attempts whatsoever, on my part, to leave the tarmac behind and investigate its prowess off-road, especially in horrendously muddy conditions. I was also riding alone and the prospect of sliding off - and having to pick it up - didn’t appeal. Not with a bike weighing in at 223 kgs.
Off-roader riders far, far better than I, however, have already attested to this bike’s goat-like ability on the rough stuff, and you can find plenty of evidence of this on YouTube with images of the bike sliding around corners, leaping off rocks and plunging through river crossings. It’s impressive stuff.
On the road, the seating position is typical adventure; wide open and spacious and with plenty of room between the saddle and the footpegs, and with nice wide handlebars. For me - at around 5 ft 9 inches - the Desert X was definitely on the tall side with the seat measuring in at 875mms; I could reach the ground on tip-toe only, reducing confidence while parking and slithering about in all that hail. A lower seat can be specified, along with an additional lowering kit if necessary.
With my warmest - most cumbersome - boots on, I found the gear lever position awkwardly tight and the brake lever too high, on their standard settings. Lighter boots - and a little adjustment - would have sorted this.
Other niggles? The seat - although fitted correctly - felt slightly loose, and there was too much free play in the fly-by-wire throttle, before it engaged. No doubt familiarity would swiftly overcome the latter. Some riders have noted that simple maintenance activity, such as cleaning the air filter, is a bit of an awkward chore, with the official handbook recommending that such work, usually tackled by owners, is entrusted only to a Ducati dealer, which could become tiresome and expensive. Fortunately, workaround ‘how to’ videos are emerging on sites such as YouTube, so it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.
I was disappointed - in those freezing conditions - to find that although there was a switch for heated hand grips, they didn’t actually function, as they’re an optional extra. If only I’d chosen warmer gloves...
Cold aside, this was one very enjoyable bike; a bike that trickled through traffic gently but that also liked eating up bends, with plenty of smoothly fed-in power always at hand. For those heading off on adventures – and brave enough to tackle the rough stuff - its adept combination of off and on-road fun make it a very strong contender indeed.
The facts
Ducati Desert X £14,095
Tank capacity: 23 litres (optional extras include an eight-litre rear tank).
Max power: 110 bhp
Max torque: 92 Nm at 6,400 rpm
Transmission: 6 speed, up/down quickshifter
Claimed fuel consumption: 54 mpg.
Claimed range: 248 miles
Seat height: 875 mm
Weight (wet): 223 kgs
Ground clearance: 250 mm
