Yes I am spoiled! I just got my new Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro in Caspian Blue. There was

nothing wrong with my white one, but I love Triumph’s Caspian Blue color. Being old and owning a dealership has its benefits!

I am in the process of planning my first tour on it and am so excited. We are going to ride to Oregon via the coast and mountains, and return down the coast through wine country, of course visiting some wineries along the way. The trip will be over 2000 miles and seven days filled with incredible scenery, wonderful comradery, and great visits to exciting places.The time of year will probably present all kinds of weather including high heat, rain and cold. I can’t wait!

The bike set up for the trip consists of a one tooth larger front sprocket on my Tiger, top hard bag and a Triumph waterproof bag strapped to the rear seat. I also have a tank bag and will be using a Garmin Zumo GPS. I have a Sena Helmet comm system for music and communication. My gear will be a riding jacket and pants with body armor, balaclava and neck gaiter, Arai helmet, rain suit, electric jacket and gloves, light gloves and riding boots.

If you have never toured on your motorcycle you are missing out on one of life’s great pleasures. If you have, then you know how great it is...so start planning your next trip!

Motorcycle teaser videos, those gaudy sources of temptation, are baldfaced attempts to fire the buying public’s frenzy through breathtaking images of performance and adventure. And Ducati’s, and its DesertX promos in particular, work like a charm. Early footage of Antoine Méo blasting desert dunes and ripping a motocross track worked their seductive magic; customers went running to dealerships, deposit in hand, for a motorcycle unlike anything the Italian company has produced before.

But when we get past the undeniably amazing images, the real question is whether the DesertX can live up to all the hype. And before we answer that question, we need to take a deep dive into the bike itself.

A few things about the DesertX make Ducati’s offering unique. The press kit emphasizes early on that this is the first modern Ducati with 21-inch front and 18-inch rear wheel sizes. That’s important because it defined the direction that designers wanted to take with the bike, namely, building an extremely off-road-capable adventure motorcycle. The riding position was optimized to make standing on the pegs comfortable without compromising the seated position. The engine may be the tried-and-true 937cc liquid-cooled Testastretta 11° twin that has powered a whole stable of models, but it’s been painstakingly tweaked for this demanding application. And the styling is a departure from the sharp angular lines of the Multistrada, for instance, with a much more retro-rally vibe.

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