Ten Ducati Multistrada Enduros are lined up complete with Pirelli Scorpion Rally knobbly tyres.
The wind is blowing up a dust bowl at Walter’s Arena in South Wales as Ducati’s Beppe Gualini announces why we’re here.
“This experience is designed to give you a taster of the full Ducati DRE Enduro course that takes place in Tuscany. We’re here to have some fun, do some riding and for us to show you what the Ducati Multistrada Enduro can really do. People think this is a Multistrada, but it’s different. There are more than 100 parts different on the Multistrada Enduro, including the bodywork, the suspension, the swingarm, the wheels. It’s a very different bike.”
When Beppe talks, you listen. He has finished 10, yes 10, Paris Dakars on motorcycles, and countless desert rallies on two and four wheels and was the lead development rider in the Ducati Multistrada Enduro, riding for some 50,000 miles to try and destroy Ducati’s off-road Multi, a motorcycle designed as the ultimate go-anywhere global adventure bike.
The Multistrada Experience we’re on today is a shorter, more condensed three-hour version of the full one-and-a-half-day course and designed as a taster for the Ducati Multistrada DRE Enduro in Tuscany, Italy.
I attended the event in Tuscany last year and can say it was a fantastic way to spend a weekend riding motorcycles in the rolling Tuscan countryside one of the world’s finest motorcycles.
The full Tuscan experience costs €680. Today’s taster is free.
We’re given our bikes, and head out for a quick ride on the road to get a feel for the 160bhp bikes, before heading out on the dirt. Switching to Enduro mode on the bike’s multitude of engine power modes, the 160bhp Multistrada is tamed down to a 100bhp dirt bike. It’s torquey, and can be chugged round just off tickover. The first obstacle is like doing a CBT off-road.
We ride through cones, and get a feel for the weight and confidence of the bike and tyres off-road. In procession, myself and other assembled journalists ride in and out of cones, hanging off the outside of the bike. I almost lose the front a couple of times on the gravelly surface, but am corrected on my riding position, and it’s a great way to get confident with the big Ducati.
We practice emergency stops with ABS switched off on the back, and you can feel just how capable the bike is in the dirt.
Quickly moving on to a balance beam, ridden at walking pace before meeting the hardest obstacle yet. There’s around 50 metres of large speed bumps spread around a metre apart, bolted to a metal frame. It’s designed to be tackled slowly to simulate riding over logs. Practice makes perfect and eventually the whole group are adapting their riding position to get over the obstacles with Beppe shouting his encouragement.
Just before we give the bikes back there’s the chance to ride off for a ten-minute blast around the incredible 1500-acre estate at Walter’s Arena, cutting through dust tracks and over small jumps. It’s a way of putting in to practice everything you’ve just learnt from Beppe and his team.
Today, this quick experience is free, and anyone can sign up for one of the future events.
Our ride took place during the Touratech Travel Event 2017 in Ystradgynlais, but if you fancy a go, the Ducati Multistrada Enduro Experience will also run at the forthcoming Carole Nash MCN Festival of Motorcycling in Peterborough on May 13-14th.
Sign up now at Ducati’s UK website, and if you fancy the full, one and a half day Tuscany experience, have a look at: www.DREenduro.it/en