Test Ride Launch
Ducati DesertX
Ducati’s DesertX is a welcome throwback to the early 1990s and the golden era of the infamous Paris-Dakar Rally (now the Dakar Rally), an event dominated by gargantuan twin-cylinder dune busters. These bikes were big, brutal, fast –and looked cool. And while Ducati never won the Dakar, its engines did in 1990 and 1994 with Cagiva. The new DesertX is clearly inspired by those old-school Dakar icons.
Ducati first unveiled the DesertX concept as an air-cooled 1100, complete with side-mounted Scrambler-style shock, at EICMA back in 2019 – and it looked awesome. The production bike today looks similarly dramatic and, thankfully, Ducati has stayed with the concept bike’s twin headlights. The powerplant is now the 937cc water-cooled 109bhp Testastretta V-twin, and the rear shock has moved to a more conventional position, but otherwise it’s equally evocative and true to the original vision.
It is also a huge step for Ducati, which is stepping into a new class.
It’s the first production bike to come from Bologna with a 21-inch front/18-inch rear wheel combination since the 1960s, and that required an all-new chassis, suspension, electronics… Almost every part is unique to the DesertX.
The X has been designed to work both on- and off-road, while being intrinsically easy to use, so it has much to prove. We flew to Sardinia to test its credentials,
