DUCATI MULTISTRADA | BOSS AMONG A

Year by year, adventure touring motorcycles get more and more complicated, and the best example of this is the Ducati Multistrada 1200. Don't get me wrong; it's an absolutely wonderful motorcycle, probably the best in the class, but to ride it the way it's meant to be ridden, it needs more sensors and electronics than NASA owns. However, Ducati does have a solution for those who would like their adventure-tourers to be a bit more 'direct' and the approach it has taken starts with a smaller engine.

Ducati has done some brilliant scaling-down jobs in the past with something like the Panigale 959, which is more manageable and, dare I say, more fun than the 1299, and even the Monster 821 which we like more than the 1200. So that's exactly the route Ducati took with the Multistrada – it plonked in a smaller 937cc L-twin engine (from the Hypermotard and SuperSport) and cut back on some of the more high-tech features. The end result is 113hp of power on tap and 96.2Nm of torque. It doesn't get the two spark plugs per cylinder from the 1200 either, nor does it get Desmodromic Variable Timing (DVT).

Ducati has also ditched the 1200's cutting-edge 'Skyhook' electronically adjustable suspension on this bike. The 950's suspension is fully adjustable though; it's just that you need to manually change the setup – no on-the-fly stuff like that on the big Multistrada. You do get a healthy 170mm of suspension travel at both ends, and the bike is very well sprung, so riding on rough roads won't be an issue. That said, the stock setup for the front is rather soft and applying brakes into a corner to avoid a slower rider causes the bike to almost violently stand up. And when braking in a straight line, the dive was quite pronounced as well. However, this is nothing that a little fine-tuning of the suspension (done by an expert, of course) can't sort out.

Even though the 950 is supposed to be a 'smaller' Multistrada, you wouldn't get that feeling, even when getting in the saddle. The rider's triangle (the distance from the foot pegs to the seat to the handlebars) seems nearly identical to the 1200, and even though it's a road-oriented machine in its stock configuration, its tallish seat height of 840mm is in line with off-road specialised adventure tourers (think more Triumph Tiger 800 XCx rather than XRx). The saddle is roomy even for large-sized riders and pillions, and even my 5ft 10in frame was protected from wind blast after I set the manually adjustable windscreen to its tallest setting.