Dubbed the Best Motorcycle of the 2009 EICMA show, the 2010 Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Touring has a lofty title that we’ve been itching to test since we saw the bike debut in Milan last year. While the new Multistrada 1200 comes in many flavors, we somehow managed to get our hands on the Multistrada 1200 S Touring version, or as we like to call it: “King Duc”. The Multistrada line has been Ducati’s attempt to be more than a sportbike-driven brand, and with this latest incarnation we can see that the Bologna-based company has taken a serious stab at making a go-anywhere GS-killer, with Italian style of course.

We were anxious to bring the Multistrada 1200 to our happy hunting grounds in Santa Barbara, CA where we had just recently test ridden the groundbreaking Honda VFR1200F a month back. Our adventures with the new Multi actually began with a very long and boring two-hour drive into Brea, CA on four wheels. Traveling on four wheels in Los Angeles is the stuff suicide notes are made of, and naturally the return trip from Brea was a more pleasurable experience for a certain test rider, than it was for one editor stuck in LA gridlock. Of course that didn’t stop me from having the pleasurable experience of becoming acquainted with the Multistrada 1200 in its natural territory, the open road.

Knowing the sporty nature of Ducati motorcycles (and the seemingly inverse relationship between sportiness and comfort), we were skeptical of how enjoyable the 150-mile ride back from Brea would be on the Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Touring. Suffering through the almost endless miles of parked cars on the highway that laid between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, I pulled over and sent the first text message back about the bike, “So much fun!!!!” it read, along with a picture of the Multistrada sitting on the side of dead-end road.