The ADV That Nails The Balance Between Touring Comfort and Sportbike Speed
Somewhere along the way, the adventure bike became the motorcycle everybody wants, whether or not they have ever left the tarmac. The appeal is easy to decode. It is versatile, for starters, and it carries a big-bike stance that looks ready for the Dakar even on a run to the office. Broken roads barely register on one, and plenty of them will happily cover state lines in comfort, upright and out of the wind.
The trouble starts when you ask one to hurry through a fast corner. The 19-inch front wheel, long-travel suspension, and tall seat that make it so easygoing leave it vague and top-heavy once you lean in, so most ADVs pick a side. Riders want one bike for a two-up tour, Monday’s commute and Sunday’s canyon run, without parking three in the garage. Most ADVs compromise here, but there’s one machine that ticks every checkbox.
Not Every ADV Delivers Sportbike Thrills With Touring Comfort
The do-it-all badge is the best marketing line in motorcycling, and like most good marketing lines, the fine print is where it gets interesting. Between the brochure and the garage, the ADV segment has split into camps, and each camp keeps a different promise. The dirt-ready bikes keep the adventure promise. They are lighter, and they have the travel, the clearance and the easygoing stance to make a rutted track feel friendly.
The luxury tourers keep the comfort promise. Tall screens, cruise control, heated everything, and a ride that irons the road flat turn a 500-mile day into a Sunday drive. They are also big, heavy machines, and a tight corner reminds you that you are steering a ship. Then there are the road-focused rockets, which keep the speed promise with engines that have real sports bike punch.
Modern ADVs Try To Bridge The Gap
Flagship ADVs now make somewhere between 145 and 170 horsepower, numbers that would have turned heads on a sports bike not long ago. Cornering ABS and traction control keep that power civil, riding modes let one bike swap personalities, and cruise control and better wind protection take the sting out of long days. The old trade-offs haven’t vanished, but they are shrinking.
Shrinking is not the same as solved. Bolting a sports bike engine onto a tall bike is the easy part. Getting power, handling and comfort to work together without any of them spoiling the others is where most of the segment runs out of ideas. Only a handful of motorcycles get the mix right.
Ducati Multistrada V4 Gets There Closest
Ducati has been selling the do-it-all idea since 2003, when the first Multistrada rolled out to prove a big, upright bike didn’t have to be boring. For years, that meant a clever V-twin tourer with a sporting streak. Then the V4 generation arrived, and Ducati decided the recipe still needed more bite. Out went the twin. In came a V4 with a superbike’s pedigree, wrapped in a bike that kept all the friendly manners of a tourer: the tall stance, the wind protection, and the long-distance comfort. It looks like it wants a continent to cross and rides like it’s running late for it.
At $19,995, You Are Effectively Buying Three Motorcycles In One
The 2026 Multistrada V4 starts at $19,995. At that price it undercuts the BMW’s R 1300 GS, which is priced at $20,395. For that money, you are getting a sports bike, a tourer and an adventure bike in a single frame. The sports bike side gives it the pace and agility to make a favorite road feel short. The tourer side will carry you and a passenger a long way without complaint. The adventure side keeps it going when the tarmac gives out. That is a lot to ask of one machine for under $20,000, and the way it pulls it off starts with the engine.
The Granturismo V4 Keeps Every Ride Lively, Whatever The Route
Everything the Multistrada V4 promises starts with the Granturismo, a 1,158cc V4 that makes 170 horsepower and 91 pound-feet of torque. Those are sports bike-sized numbers, but the engine’s real job is to be useful at every pace. Features like the counter-rotating crankshaft and twin-pulse firing order help give it a broad, usable spread, so crawling through city traffic isn’t a chore, and the same engine still has plenty in reserve when the highway opens up.
A six-speed gearbox and Ducati’s two-way quick shifter do the rest, keeping you on the throttle through the gears whether you are hustling down a mountain road or settling in at a steady 70. That range is exactly what you want from a bike that has to be a commuter on Monday and a canyon bike on Sunday.
The Granturismo uses conventional valve springs, a first for the brand. The payoff is on the service schedule. The first valve clearance check comes at 37,000 miles, and oil changes are due every 9,000 miles or two years. For a rider planning a long trip, that means fewer workshop visits, and for an owner, it quietly retires the old idea that a Ducati is expensive to look after.
A Chassis That Carves Like A Sports Bike And Cruises Like A Tourer
This is where the Multistrada V4 earns its sporty reputation. The frame is an aluminum monocoque that uses the engine as a stressed member, a sports bike trick that keeps the structure stiff and the weight down. The steering geometry is set up for quick, accurate turn-in. At 505 pounds without fuel, it is respectable for a flagship adventure tourer.
The suspension is fully adjustable and comes from Marzocchi. Up front is a fully adjustable 50 mm inverted fork with 6.7 inches of travel, and the rear gets a fully adjustable monoshock with remote preload adjustment and 7.1 inches of travel. That is an adventure-bike stroke, enough to take the sting out of broken tarmac, but the damping is adjusted by hand, so you can firm it up for a canyon run or soften it for a long haul with a passenger and luggage. Ducati also moved the swingarm pivot higher to limit the rear squatting under power, which keeps the bike settled when it is loaded.
Stopping power comes from a pair of 320 mm semi-floating discs at the front, each gripped by a radially mounted Brembo monobloc four-piston caliper. At the back, a single 280 mm disc is paired with a Brembo two-piston floating caliper. The bike rolls on a 19-inch front and a 17-inch rear cast alloy wheel. It is a setup that keeps gravel on the menu without giving up grip on tarmac, which is the balance this bike is chasing.
A Sophisticated Electronics Suite Offers A Safety Net
Underneath the hardware sits an electronics package that does the worrying for you. Cornering ABS, traction control, and wheelie control step in before a slippery corner or a hard launch becomes a story. Riding and power modes reshape the bike’s character at the press of a button. The rest is aimed at long days.
Cruise control, a quick shifter, Vehicle Hold Control for hill starts, and a cornering light that helps you see into a bend after dark all come standard, along with a five-inch TFT dash. None of it dulls the ride. It is a safety net that lets you use more of the bike. For the rider who wants one bike for Monday’s commute, a two-up tour and Sunday’s canyon run, it is the one that asks you to give up the least.
Source: Ducati
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