V4 First Test Ride On A V4…

So I finally test rode a V4 Multistrada today - Ducati Glasgow's Rally demonstrator. And was pretty thoroughly underwhelmed. In fact, I got five miles down the road before the phrase, "Not my kind of bike" slid unbidden into my forebrain.

Firstly, it's big. No, it's huge. I was expecting the Rally, with its big tank, to be top heavy. Which it was, but you get used to that. I was however sitting bolt upright, staring at the world over wide bars, a vast acreage of tank and a front end which felt a long way away. I did have a sit on a standard V4S and although the tank outlook was less intrusive, the overall riding position felt much the same.

Around town, the V4 was (obviously) much smoother at low revs than my 1200, but there was a surprising level of driveline shunt, which struck me as not being very 2024.

The gear lever position (at least as set up on this demonstrator) was rubbish - tucked far too far into the bike, so that I had to twist my toe inwards to shift gear. And the quickshifter was absolute rubbish: half the time it simply refused to up-shift and, when it did, it was less smooth than doing a clutchless shift in the old-fashioned way. It's supposed to be a two-way QS, but bollocks to that - it was awful. At least I could find neutral on demand, which took one standard Ducati game away.

The engine. Hmm. Now I loved the Panigale engine for combining the best (IMHO) of V2 character with the advantages of a V4. Not so the Multistrada: It wasn't as smooth as I expected, and it didn't compensate for that with notable drive and character - as others have noted, it needs to be at 7k and above before it picks up its skirts and flies. Which it does, but it's not how I like to ride - that hilariously visceral kick of the V-twins out of corners simply wasn't there.

So then the brakes: these lacked feel and bite both, and simply couldn't be modulated the way you'd want when having fun. And the same applied to the handling: if there's one thing that's been consistent with all the Ducatis I've had over the last 40 years, it's the utter confidence that the feel from the front end gives you. Until now: this bike lacked any sort of real feel from the front - yes, it gripped well and handled predictably, but I never felt that it was giving me any feedback as to what was happening at the contact patch.

Lots of electronics, with a rather poor interface and (to my mind) a whole bunch of unnecessary functions that weren't implemented properly. It actually reminded me of the couple of times I've driven an Audi. That is not a compliment.

On the credit side, wind protection was excellent, and raising or lowering the screen made a real difference. Sliding into debit again was the seat: that, combined with the very upright position, gave me a sore arse after 45 minutes. Which would make the claimed 250-mile tank range decidedly moot.

But I arrived back and switched back to my machine with some relief, and it was a real joy heading home over the highland twisties. I did however take the time to have a sit on a nice 1260 Pikes Peak, which seems much more my kind of bike and may be the way I go.

But a lot of people, here and elsewhere, love these machines. Am I missing something basic?

 

You and many others. I think that it’s simply that my background and therefore expectation was a bit different from some. It did remind me of a GS Adventure (in a good way), but that’s another bike I tried and didn’t gel with. I suspect it’s that I’m looking for a modern bike that’s as close to the ST4s as possible, so the further into adventure bike territory a bike goes, the further from my own preferences.

 

I found the handling very consistent and predictable and got more lean angle than I’d normally achieve when riding a new bike for the first time. On my other bikes, I do find that tyres make a big difference - what do you use, and how much difference to the bike’s feel do you find they make? On wear, I used to be a complete Pirelli devotee, but had to switch to Michelin after moving back to Scotland and finding that rear tyre life went from around 3000 miles to 1100!

 

I wonder - it certainly didn’t feel like a well set up machine, but a dealer demonstrator with 3k miles on it shouldn’t be rocket science to keep in good nick.

 

I’m just

I’d consider a v4 PP but obviously there aren’t any demonstrators - so I’ll see if Ducati Dundee have a standard v4s I can try.

 

I haven't ridden the DesertX (maybe I should) but I agree completely - I think the combination of that distance and the very upright riding position made me feel very remote from the action.

 

In principle, it would almost be the ideal bike for me. However, I usually buy my bikes and cars outright and find that, since the rise of PCP promotions, list prices have gone very silly indeed. Which doesn't matter if your headline figure is the monthly outgoing, but does matter if you're a cash buyer. These days I usually buy ex-demo or 18-24 months old, by which time they've usually done some useful depreciating. So I may wait a while and see if any RS' appear on the used market, but there will never be many.

 

Yup. That's exactly what I've been doing, for years. The irony of course is - as you say - that they've got pretty much all the components in their range, they'd just need to assemble the right combination. I did toy briefly with a project: buying a s/h V4s Streetfighter and modding it to spec (including design and layup of a suitable fairing), but wiser counsels prevailed.

I'd personally go for the full fat end of things and have the full-on Streetfighter Desmo engine: that would be just hilarious. If they announced that, I'd forgo my usual 'hang around a bit and buy after initial depreciation' approach, and just bloody order one.

When I did the factory tour a few years ago, I raised this very point, and was told the equivalent of, "You're the hundredth person I've told this week: there's no demand for it"…