00:00Hi, I'm Ned Cease.
00:01I'm here in Almeria, Spain looking at the new Ducati Desert X for Cycle World magazine.
00:06We just had a really great day riding around the twisty roads and mountains in southern
00:11Spain.
00:11It's so beautiful here.
00:13They're such cool roads.
00:14It was really a fun time.
00:15I think the question when I see this bike is, who's it for?
00:18What's the perfect customer?
00:19What's the perfect ride?
00:20Where does it fit in the adventure marketplace?
00:23So this bike is a complete redesign from the previous model.
00:27They didn't take anything over.
00:28They say they wanted to move into a more modern package rather than a more heritage
00:32type approach.
00:34And I think they hit that mark.
00:35They spent a lot of time listening to customers of the previous bike and trying to address
00:40concerns that they had.
00:41So a number of things came out of that.
00:43There's a user replaceable air filter that's pretty easy to get to.
00:47That's a great feature.
00:48It has really long service intervals, 9,000 miles for the oil and 28,000 for the valve
00:54adjustment.
00:54They really tried to address the running costs of the bike.
01:03It's a new motor.
01:04It's not a Desmo valve actuation.
01:07It's valve springs, but it's smaller and more compact.
01:10I think lighter than the previous engine was.
01:12It's a real sweetheart of an engine.
01:13They redid the transmission.
01:15The bottom four gears are a little bit lower.
01:18The sixth gear is a little bit taller.
01:20Fifth gear remains unchanged.
01:21And that works out really well.
01:23It's nice to ride.
01:24It gives you a perfect ratio for just about anything you want to do.
01:26It's got all the features that you would expect in the class.
01:29It has lots of different riding modes.
01:32It comes standard with a rally mode that allows you to disable basically ABS and traction control
01:38and so on.
01:39It also has the ability to tune engine braking, has the ability to tune wheelie control, which
01:44didn't get the chance to test.
01:46But I think all the things you would hope for in a bike like this, it offers.
01:50The motor is fantastic.
01:52It's really fun.
01:53It's got a nice character.
01:55I think it's more charming than any of the parallel twins that it might compete with.
02:05Up front is a 46mm KYB inverted fork with preload, compression, and rebound adjustment.
02:11And out back, we have a KYB monoshock with preload, compression, and rebound adjustment.
02:16From my perspective, the suspension is a little bit harsh.
02:19And then once you sort of break through and hit a bump hard enough to get it moving,
02:23it almost wants to wallow.
02:25Now the suspension is fully adjustable, and I didn't have any tools, so I wasn't able
02:29to adjust it.
02:30It's possible that that could be addressed to some degree with adjustments.
02:33I guess time will tell.
02:35The other thing I would say is the front end is kind of vague.
02:38Less so on pavement, more so on dirt, but it's hard to have a really good feeling with
02:42the front tire.
02:43It sort of feels like it's a little bit too far out there to know what it's going to do.
02:47Never did anything wrong, but it just felt vague to me.
02:58The ergonomic package is great.
03:00The seat's really comfortable.
03:01The pegs and bars are in a great position.
03:04It's comfortable to stand up.
03:05Your knees and the tank work well together.
03:07So I think they nailed the ergonomic package.
03:17It's totally happy to ride in a dirt road, but it wants to have the clutch out and the
03:21throttle open.
03:22It's not a tight technical.
03:25It doesn't want to be a trials bike.
03:26It wants to get moving and it wants to stay moving.
03:29It's great on any kind of pavement.
03:31It definitely is really reassuring when you're leaned over.
03:34We rode some just fantastic roads today and I couldn't think almost of a better companion.
03:46So back to where we started, what's the perfect trip for this bike?
03:50You know, to be honest, they call it the Desert X, but I would take it to the Southern Appalachians
03:54or to the Sierra before I would take it to Death Valley or Baja.
03:59It's not a bike I want to ride sand whoops on.
04:01It's not a bike that I want to spend all day trying to work my way up a wash.
04:05It's so much fun when the road is kind of twisty.
04:08It really makes pleasant work out of exploring on back roads, whether they're paved or whether
04:13they're dirt.
04:14I guess if I had to sum this bike all up, I'd say it's a great option for a middleweight
04:19adventure bike.
04:20It has great features.
04:21It seems like something that you'd really enjoy in a lot of different situations.
04:25It does a lot of things reasonably well and a few things very well.
04:30It's going to be about $17,000.
04:32It'll be available in July in the US.
04:34I hope you like this color because it's the only one.
04:37Personally, I love that it reckons back to the Kajiva Elephant of the Dakar days.
04:42If I had to choose a bike to go ride technical twisty pavement on, this would be near the top
04:47of the list.
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