Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

scope of riding he enjoyed - a twisting and often bumpy mountain pass with the ability to ride around town or even tackle the odd long distance highway jaunt thrown into the bargain. And though the assembled journalists weren't able to sample life aboard the Multistrada in the two latter environs, Sardinia's southern coastline held the former in tire-shredding abundance. There's no shortage of winding roads in this part of the world, from the tight sections of tarmac with tightening radius curves hugging the island's sparkling coastline to the hairpins and sweeping bends of the hilly regions never far beyond it. And although the quality of the surface is often less than ideal, many areas bumpy, rutted or breaking up altogether, it's here that the Multistrada truly excels. In fact, a source of inspiration for the bike's creation was Italy's Passo della Futa, a road that harmoniously with a comfortable ride position and general practicality. The 1000 DS (Dual Spark) 90degree L-twin found at the Multistrada's heart offers healthy if not armwrenching punch, while its quality chassis and suspension really let you get the most out of it. Also found in Ducat!'s Supersport and Monster ranges, this powerplant has been criticized as being afflicted with an undue level of vibration, but here in the Multistrada it's never enough to annoy - just enough to let you know you're aboard a Ducati. It's a torquey engine, with plenty of go from just off idle before spinning up to its 8700 rpm redline with ease in most of its six gears, delivering a nice spread of torque throughout its meaty midrange. Top gear at 120kmh (74.4 mph) will see 4200 rpm on the tach, which hints at relaxed touring potential, too, while its well thought out gear ratios offer complementary performance over a "This bike is good. Seriously good and seriously good fun..:' winds from Bologna over the Apennine Mountains to Florence, where its myriad of turns and surfaces has made it a challenging mecca for the many motorcyclists of the region for years. After spending a day aboard the Multistrada over similar roads myself, I found it to be nothing less than the ultimate all-rounder, and oh so much fun - the perfect blend of sportbike handling and performance, mated wide range of riding situations. One area I'd been looking forward to appraising in particular was its Marelli fuel injection. Many models in the Ducati range are a little prone to snatchiness at "around town" speeds, which is a point of some importance to a model pitched as the Multistrada is. Thankfully, it's spot-on, offering wonderfully crisp response throughout the entire rev range, without a hint of snatchiness at low speed. And How do you carne up w~h • bike _ u_ble end .t:rlklng • • the new Mu~l.trede? Cycle Ne_ recently .poke ~h one of the key men behind the praject;, DUCIIt:I dlrect:ar of d_lgn, Pierre Terblanche, 1:0 find out ... Cycle News: The Multistrada is unlike anything we've ever seen from Ducati - why did you originally dream this bike up, and what did you intend for it right from the start? Pierre Terblanche: I found myself working for a company where there wasn't actually a bike produced in the model range that I wanted to buy - that's the real truth of it. For the type of riding I mainly enjoy, around my home and where I work, none of the bikes Ducati were producing were actually any good. We had hypersport bikes - the 998, we were planning the 999 - we had the Monster, we had the ST and the 55, none of which were really great for hairpin bends, bumpy roads, heading down to the shops, going up the motorway - doing the stuff that people normally actually do. So they were very specialized - the Monster is good around town, but not so good on open roads. I worked on the Canyon 900 for Cagiva, and that had certain limitations due to aerodynamics and so on, so obviously when one thinks of a new project you think, "Where can you improve?" So the idea was to make a bike which was good for touring people, for the average rider and which would be one hell of a lot of fun to ride on the sorts of roads that you find a lot of in Europe - quite twisty roads, and ones that sometimes don't have a great surface. CN: How would you categorize this bike - do you think you can? A lot of people might be quick to class it as an adventure tourer or a dual sport bike, like the Canyon 900 - do you think that's right, or does the Multistrada belong in a class of its own? PT: Of course I'd like to say it belongs to a whole new category - it does what all those "adventure touring" bikes wanted to do but never quite managed for lack of equipment. So what we've done here is, we've made a bike which weighs 441 Ibs. and has 84 very torquey horsepower - compared to one of the bikes that people will inevitably compare it too, BMW's RI150 GS, it weighs 99 Ibs. less and has ten more horsepower. On top of this it has stickY tires, incredibly light steering and big, powerful brakes - it is, in fact, a true road bike. It's a hypersports bike but with a high degree of rider comfort, and I think you'U find that after the first three weekends on which sportbike riders have been passed on their favorite road by three of these in convoy, they'll start thinking a bit differently about them and won't think of them as a dual sport. I don't think you can go faster on a hypersport bike than you can on this - on normal roads, no way. It's going to be the quickest thing point to point for your normal rider. CN: Did you approach Ducati management with the idea for this bike, or did they come to you and ask you to fill a gap in the Ducati model range? PT: A little bit of both really· we were discussing the bike, and we were saying that we needed to do something to create a new niche; we needed to extend our market a little bit. This was a logical development of what the 900 Canyon could have become, but using bits that are more Ducati based - using a single-sided swingarm, having really great Brembo brakes, etc. The brakes are Superbike level; it's got sticky tires, and the seat height is only a little bit taller than our ST4 - people think the bike's higher when they see it, but it's actually... when they go and ride it, they'll find it's smaller than a 650 enduro bike. The wheelbase is shorter, and the bike actually only weighs 22 Ibs. more than Aprilia's 650 Pegaso, but with 25bhp more. The key person here was David Gross [head of Ducati marketing], and we came up with a brief together. but I put down the stuff that I would want, that I thought was the right stuff to have on a bike for whatI'd like to do. CN: When did you first begin work on the project, and how close do you think the finished bike is to what you initially enVisaged? PT: We started work in March of 2001, and looking at and riding the Multistrada; I would say we got its brief spot on. The project started life as Project 85, the idea being it would do everything 85 percent as well as anything specialized out there. So you could go to a racetrack, and I'm sure that on a tight racetrack this thing could show up a bunch of guys on sportbikes, no problem. The idea was, this bike could tour fairly well, or you could go into town on it - it's fun in traffic and fun at track days, and you can stick it sideways without it getting out of control. So it had to do a little bit of everything very well, but globally it had to be 110 percent, because if you get these specialist bikes, they do one thing well and everything else rather badly - we wanted to almost introduce a new standard. Around 30 years ago, a Kawasaki Z900 wasn't really a hypersports machine, but you could go into town on it, and you could ride around a little bit, and it wasn't totally uncomfortable - this is closer to the old standard motorcycles than it is to anything else that's out there now. CN: The Multistrada's styling is something of a departure from the usual Ducati styling, and it certainly seems to polarize opinions when motorcyclists get together and discuss it. Is this a bike to give existing Ducatisti a further option from their favorite marque, or a product specifically designed to attract an entirely new clientele. PT: We have a certain percentage of so-called classic Ducatisti, but our growth also has to come from people that aren't necessarily familiar with the traditional Ducati brand· if we want to grow and make more motorcycles and be profitable, we have to sell different bikes. The Multistrada really stands out; on the road it has a strong presence. and it doesn't pass without being noticed. Whether everyone loves it or not is not the point. What is important is that the people who like it buy it. If other people don't want to buy it then I think that's rather sad, but what is important is that it doesn't pass unnoticed - it must be striking, it must stand out in the crowd, and it must work extremely well. The bottom line is, I think the Multistrada is the most fun to ride of any bike in the Ducati range, and I think that's going to appeal to Ducatisti and others alike. cue I .. ne""s MAY 7, 2003 35

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