Insult to Injury

Chuckracer said:

Any of you guys ever spent any meaningful time on a Multistrada Touring?

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Assuming many things, I might ask: And how much time have you spent in the saddle of a Harley Davidson? You still have an opinion about those bikes don't you? What's your point? We don't know what we like or dislike if we haven't tried it? You like Harleys? No?! Why not? Can't imagine yourself on one? You believe they won't give you what you desire? How, if you haven't spent some meaningful time in the saddle?

I have said many times, that for me, and IMO, if you can't get a "feel" for any bike by looking at the dimensions and specs, you're not a well informed and experienced motorcyclist. I have lots of experience riding upright bikes; bikes with bad aerodynamics, bikes with more power than what's needed, to know I'm not interested, and I don't need to talk about styling, or extraneous electronic aids to pile on even more reasons why I decided that bike is not for me. It was and continues to be a huge let down for me, because it is Ducati's "official" S-touring bike. It's a fancy motard with side cases IMO, not an ST. But I am in a minority, and I know that.

Those who have them, *love* them, *most* but not all times, and that's a great testimony given the "teething problems" the bike has had in each of its production years so far, 2013's issues yet to be determined. It gets great reviews in just about all the magazines. But sadly, that's still not enough to excite me. Bring out a ST that looks like a sexy d-16 with side cases and has a nice Ducati exhaust growl, decent suspenders and binders, no or low electronic aids, and you've got my attention. No time in the saddle needed.

randy_l said:

Ha! I just spent the last 9 years and 90K miles on an '03 FZ1.

It was a fantastically capable bike that could do most everything very well. Lots of HP, comfortable ergos, and with some suspension mods it could flat-out rail. But, it has the sex appeal of a brick (especially the Gen I's) and other than a relatively small group of deeply disturbed fans it didn't really sell very well. Frankly, I'm surprised that Yamaha is still selling the model.

They are very reliable too. Well, except for mine I guess. After a 1500 mile trip last August where the bike ran as strong as ever, I got home and parked it in the garage and took off for Michigan for a family wedding. When I wheeled it out of the garage a week later it wouldn't start, and after some diagnostics it turns out that it had 50-60psi in all four cylinders. Regardless of the root cause, a fugly 9 year old bike with 90K miles isn't worth pouring money into.

Fortunately, I ended up coming across my ST3s ABS and I'm loving it. I've put on 2.5K miles in the last 6 weeks and the grin hasn't left my face (although I sometimes miss the rush of about 130 hp at the wheel ). I looked at the Multistrada as well, but to be honest I wasn't about to spend the kind of coin required to get one. I do like them though!

Randy

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I had an 2003 FJR and can relate. I'm much happier with my ST3, and yes, there are times when I miss that 99 lbs ft torque and 145 hp, but mostly on the highway, when passing. As I spend so little time on the highway, I don't miss it that much. And the trade off is not being pummeled to death on the highway by the FJR's atrocious areodynamics. My FJR started "ticking" ie bad valve guides at around 3K kilometers, and ran hotter than hell some summer days. People who complain about removing the fairing and accessing the battery on their ST bikes, have never owned a FJR.

The Ducati is simply a better bike, it's even more comfortable. I noticed small but still, IMO, significant diffences between the big yammie and my lil' Ducati. When I took the farings off the FJR, what was revealed was ugly, and industrial, with no care given to appearance or small touches as the bike has full fairings, lead by a gawd awful aluminum spar frame. When I took the Ducati's farings off, I saw little touches here and there that spoke to quality of design; like a fuel tank prop, like an airbox fabric cover, and..... "Desmotre" stamped into the head covers, where no casual eye would ever see them. For some reason, that made a big difference for me. Nobody "loved" that FJR, it was just built, not crafted...if that even makes sense.

here you go...

...now stop your complaining.

I was getting to that, you beat me to it. I was trying to, you know, prepare the way for the shock of that Diavel.

I mean even this BMWK16 meets Polaris Vision Honda's looking good these days compared to the above:

At some point in time, this adventure bike crap has to go away so we can get back to sexy Italian designs for road going bikes instead of geeky Euro designs with off road pretensions. I think Ducati is just responding to the need for bikes with touring capacity within its line up but in a 1/2-measures way in order to save the time and money needed to come up with an actual, stand alone ST bike. So now we have 2 "touring motards", one an excellent, all conquering flagship that could scare the beheesus out of many sport bikers, the other a yet to be proven but not quite as loaded or expensive version, and of course the pièce de résistance, a tour pac for their boulevard cruiser/muscle bike, none of which actually hit the ST mark in the eyes of many ST aficionados. So yes, they do acknowledge they need bikes with cases and tourability, but they're doing it on the coat tails and even parts bins of other bikes, and certainly with little regard for sexy, fluid Italian design. Even though after they unceremoniously dropped their ST bike and while there have been numerous actual ST bikes introduced over the years by others, they keep churning out bikes that have little appeal to people who like traditional road going lines and functionality in favour of gimmicky, Euro trendy design adventure bikes, and even muscle bikes, none of which interest me in the least.

If and when I'm ready for a new/different bike, I think I'd rather look at any number of "GT" bikes from the ninties or even eighties than anything Ducati is currently offering. In fact I could get three or four different older bikes for the price of a newer one I don't want. But, if Ducati did eventually come out with a 20-25K sexy, not geeky, actually assigned to be, not arbitrarily ascribed to be ST bike, I would take a very close look to see if that'd be my "last" bike. As it is now, it's looking more and more each day like I already have it.