Advanced Rapid Ride

Ducati updates its already impressive Multistrada V4 Rally with MotoGP-derived technology, while also improving safety and comfort. Here is our first ride experience

- Story: Adam Child ‘Chad’ Photography: Alex Photo

REMEMBER WHEN BIG adventure bikes were simple machines? They were relatively cumbersome and unexciting, and boasted of the same level of technology as a cuckoo clock, but there was always an appealing utilitarian quality to the Ténéres and GSs of the early 21st century.

Not so much now. Times have most definitely changed. In fact, Ducati’s updated Multistrada V4 Rally is one of the most technologically advanced production bikes in the market and, with 170 hp on tap, is as capable of a rapid ride up a mountain pass in northern Italy as it is circumnavigating the globe. Basic or dull it is not.

Ducati has adorned the new Rally with a suite of race-developed electronics similar to those introduced in the Multistrada V4 S at the beginning of 2025. Although both machines share Ducati’s Skyhook-managed Marzocchi electronic suspension, the Rally has more suspension travel, a larger 30-litre fuel tank, and is ready to take on the sands of Morocco as well as the best asphalt roads in Tuscany. We travelled to the famous Futa mountain pass just north of the Ducati factory in Bologna to see if the new Rally goes as well as it looks.

Love them or loathe them, electronic rider aids are here to stay and are making riding more enjoyable and safer than ever. In recent years, there has been a rapid development in the sophistication of all manufacturers’ rider aids, but it is arguably Ducati, using knowledge gained during a period of dominance in MotoGP, that is leading the field. Certainly, we are looking at the most advanced Ducati Multistrada yet seen.