A constant theme you will hear in the ADV space is how you can’t do real off-road riding with a big dual-sport, like the Ducati Multistrada 1260 Enduro and its siblings in the category.
They are too big, too heavy, and have too much power to be real off-road machines, some will tell you. Of course, to say that, you have to forget some history – namely that iconic off-road races like the Dakar Rally were competed on machines that aren’t all that different from today’s ADV bike.
Ducati’s Beppe Gualini knows his history though, because he was there (Editor’s note: be sure to read this interview done by our colleague Rennie Scaysbrook at Cycle News, it’s excellent). A 10-time Dakar Rally racer with 65 starts in the African rally-raid competitions, Beppe is a well-known character in the Italian motorcycle industry.
Today, we find Beppe astride his old Cagiva racing machine, giving some tips and pointers on how to handle a big bike off-road. For those with more interest, his comments are the basic building blocks of the Ducati Riding Experience Enduro (DRE Enduro) course offered by Ducati, which this author has been lucky enough to attend.
Done all in Italian (with subtitles) and over 15 minutes long , the video takes a while to process, but it should give ADV riders a nice jumping off point for doing drills and skill tests. We imagine that by the end of the quarantine, you should be able to keep up with Chris Birch and his ADV chops.
Source: Ducati (YouTube)
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