No electronically adjustable Ohlins here, but what you do get is a meaty set of 50mm fully adjustable Marzocchi forks and Sachs rear shock. For everyday use the forks are good enough for the majority of UK roads. Any adjustment to be made would be purely for the rider’s style of riding and luggage/pillion duties. The same can be said for the rear shock. Ok, so the suspension isn’t as refined as the Ohlins set up, or as easy and as quick to adjust but for the majority of owners it is perfectly acceptable.
The Ducati Multistrada 1200’s Testastretta 11º motor is based on the 1198 V-twin but with reduced valve overlap for a softer delivery and has a host of mods including wet, slipper clutch, Mikuni ride-by-wire (to allow riding modes), and softer compression. Main benefit is smoother delivery, while reduced top end poke (peak power is 150bhp instead of the 1198S’s 180) is still more than enough to dust most ‘adventure bike’ rivals. Doubling of valve service intervals to 15,000 miles is a further benefit.
Ducati is getting better all the time and the Multistrada 1200 is proof. Service intervals are now up to and impressive 15,000 miles and generally it’s well built.
Full marks here because the base model performs with the same level of versatility as the Multistrada S-model and gives the same grin factor (massive).
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Even though this is the base model it still has adjustable traction control, slipper clutch, adjustable screen, high/low seat options (touring screen became standard in 2005), single-sided swing-arm, riding modes and a fully digitised LCD display console. The subframe retains the fixing points for the S-Touring’s panniers, which can be bought separately. Likewise a centrestand. ABS is optional.