Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
WES SILER: Today, we're out at Gold Hill Road, right smack in
the middle of Los Padres National Forest.
We're riding a Moto Guzzi Stelvio NTX and a new Ducati
Multistrada 1200S.
Welcome RideApart.
Those idiots almost hit each other.
I work with knuckleheads.
[ROCK MUSIC]
WES SILER: Riding a motorcycle fast, it's about 90% skill and
about 10% bike, right?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah.
WES SILER: You think that's about right?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah.
WES SILER: And you're a former world
championship racer, right?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah.
WES SILER: How hard was it just now for you to
keep up with me?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah, tough.
WES SILER: I'm your guy, right?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah, tough going.
WES SILER: Too much slide in the front?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah, I was sliding and everything, man.
It was tough going.
WES SILER: I've never, ever ridden this bike before.
This is literally the first time I've ever hopped on it.
It is the best sports bike I've ever ridden.
It really, really is.
It really is good.
I'm so surprised I'm saying that about a Ducati.
This thing is [BLEEP]ing amazing.
It's [BLEEP]ing amazing.
It is so fast.
The suspension is so good.
Owens is worth the money.
The engine is flexible.
The brakes are full of feel.
This is it.
This is probably the fastest road bike for riding on real
roads out there right now.
Not a leader bike, not a 600, it's this adventure tour.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah. it's an incredible motorcycle.
GRANT RAY: You can ride that Multistrada for hours and
hours and hours and hours.
And you get off of it, and you're like, I was just on
something that's like a 99R.
It's pretty much the same horsepower, except that my
butt doesn't hurt.
My knees aren't cranking.
Everything feels comfortable.
And now I'm just going to go cruise and lollygag, because
I'm perfectly fine, and I'm not exhausted.
[ROCK MUSIC]
WES SILER: So this Stelvio is called a Stelvio NTX.
I'm not sure what NTX stands for, probably something
ridiculous.
But it's an all new bike.
They won't tell you this.
All new frame, all new motor, it's completely different than
the old Stelvio.
And once you really start ragging it, it actually does
well, doesn't it?
You start bouncing that motor off the limiter, you start
really getting in the corners hard, and it transforms.
It has a sort of a Jekyll and Hyde personality.
GRANT RAY: Well, I don't know how far I would go with that,
because you definitely have a point where the brakes start
really hurting you.
WES SILER: Yeah, it is heavy.
GRANT RAY: So you've really got to be careful of that.
It's more about maintaining speed than scrubbing speed
because you'll get yourself into really hairy situations
doing that.
Also, it's really easy to drag the pegs here.
WES SILER: I bet.
GRANT RAY: Yeah.
And one thing is, that the way they go back, they don't
automatically fold up, so they can grab.
JAMIE ROBINSON: I think the thing about the Guzzi is it
has a pretty awesome engine.
It really has a lot of power down there.
And it has it right from the bottom.
So that's its good point.
The bad point is the engine weighs an absolute ton.
And then the bike now weighs a ton.
GRANT RAY: It's only bad when you're going at really, really
high speeds.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah, or off roads.
WES SILER: [LAUGHS]
Get it!
Go on!
You got it!
[ROCK MUSIC]
WES SILER: As you just saw, if you were out here by yourself
and you knocked that thing over, chances are, you aren't
actually going to be able to pick it up.
And then you're just kind of [BLEEP], aren't you?
JAMIE ROBINSON: Seriously, if I was on a normal adventure
trip, that would be fully loaded.
And there'd be--
WES SILER: That's an extra 100 or so pounds, probably.
GRANT RAY: You'd have to take all of it off.
JAMIE ROBINSON: There would be no way I could have-- like I
tippled off there, turning a bike, doing a
U-turn, a simple U-turn.
WES SILER: Doing nothing.
And you're a talented--
you're a good rider.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Well, obviously not that good.
I'm not the strongest guy in the world, but I just felt--
it was like trying to pick up a Sumo wrestler.
Seriously.
I was going for it there.
In that 10 seconds until you guys came along to help me, it
felt like a minute.
GRANT RAY: Well, actually, it was probably about a minute.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Was it?
Oh.
GRANT RAY: We just had to do it.
[LAUGHTER]
JAMIE ROBINSON: My legs were shaking.
GRANT RAY: I kept waiting for you to put it back down, and
you never did.
So I was like, fine, I'll go help you pick it.
Because Wes wasn't going to.
WES SILER: I spend a good 60 seconds saying, what an idiot.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yeah, well, I spent a good 30 seconds then
just swearing.
[ROCK MUSIC]
JAMIE ROBINSON: Man down!
Come on!
God.
GRANT RAY: Dude!
Mamma mia!
WES SILER: Guys!
Guys!
GRANT RAY: OK, so both the Italians have gone down.
WES SILER: Guys!
Guys!
Two fingers!
JAMIE ROBINSON: Thank you, man.
WES SILER: Oh, [BLEEP].
You just left me with it.
[LAUGHING]
What the hell was that?
GRANT RAY: Holding it, though.
[LAUGHING]
JAMIE ROBINSON: What an [BLEEP].
[ROCK MUSIC]
GRANT RAY: OK, so we came here to ride two motorcycles.
WES SILER: Yeah.
GRANT RAY: We brought a third, thinking that it would not
really be that much of a big deal.
WES SILER: The two we came to ride were the--
GRANT RAY: So that bike was the 990 Adventure.
WES SILER: The yardstick was the 990 Adventure.
GRANT RAY: Yeah.
WES SILER: We featured it before, but we wanted to just
bring it along as something that would be better in the
dirt and give a point of comparison for two road bikes.
GRANT RAY: That are supposed to be--
WES SILER: That are supposed to be better--
GRANT RAY: They're supposed to be adventure bikes.
WES SILER: --on the road.
They were supposed to be adventure bikes.
GRANT RAY: Yeah.
WES SILER: Yeah.
Ugh.
GRANT RAY: What we found out is
something entirely different.
If there's going to be one motorcycle, it's still going
to be that 990.
WES SILER: Yeah.
It's faster than the Stelvio and--
GRANT RAY: On the road.
WES SILER: On the road.
GRANT RAY: Obviously in the dirt.
WES SILER: It's better than both of them off-road.
GRANT RAY: Combined.
WES SILER: And honestly, it can just about keep up with
the Ducati on the road.
It's got that--
KTM has such fantastic feel through everything, through
the brakes, through the throttle, through the tires,
through the suspension.
You're sitting on the road, and you realize you're sliding
the rear out of every corner on the power.
JAMIE ROBINSON: It gives you good feedback.
WES SILER: On a dual sport.
GRANT RAY: Yeah!
[LAUGHTER]
JAMIE ROBINSON: You have almost got--
when it pulls apart, you've got a fantastic off-road bike,
which is obviously very capable on the road--
WES SILER: The KTM.
JAMIE ROBINSON: --which is the KTM.
WES SILER: Yup.
JAMIE ROBINSON: And then you've got an insanely
incredible road bike in the Multistrada that you can take
off-road a little bit.
WES SILER: A very little bit.
JAMIE ROBINSON: And then you've got the Stelvio, which
is very much like the Multistrada in
what it can do off-road.
WES SILER: Nothing.
[LAUGHTER]
JAMIE ROBINSON: Which is nothing.
Which I found crossing at 0 miles an hour.
And it weighs a lot.
WES SILER: Oh, God is it heavy.
JAMIE ROBINSON: And it doesn't do anything that really fills
me with any kind of confidence or any kind
of excitement either.
It just plugs away.
GRANT RAY: When you're coming up on sharp corners and you've
got to actually hit the brakes, that's a little on the
scary side.
Am I going to stop?
I don't know.
I'm putting it in the corner.
It's like, OK, I guess it's going to do it.
WES SILER: Adventure's such a loose term.
Everybody's idea is different.
On the KTM, your adventure might be riding across
Mongolia off-road.
You could legitimately do that on that motorcycle.
On the Multistrada, your adventure might be coming up
here and passing every single superbike ever,
which I would enjoy.
I'd go pass a day on the Snake on it.
I think you would like that.
On the Stelvio, your adventure might be taking your wife and
setting out across the desert.
GRANT RAY: Yeah, like a ride to Alaska.
WES SILER: Yeah, or cruising to Vegas or something.
JAMIE ROBINSON: I do think the "adventure" term is correct.
These are adventure bikes.
These are not a superbike and a sport bike and a--
WES SILER: But you look at superbikes, and they're all
basically identical.
You look at adventures, and they're all completely
different, completely different.
JAMIE ROBINSON: The motorcycle is the adventure.
Whatever the limit of the
motorcycle, that's your adventure.
That's how much you can take it.
GRANT RAY: What it seems to me is what defines them as
adventure is the fact that all three of these bikes are
legitimately, no matter how fast you go, all day
comfortable.
WES SILER: Yup.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Yes.
GRANT RAY: You can go--
WES SILER: In town, on the highway, wherever, they are
completely comfortable.
GRANT RAY: Superbike fast, doesn't matter.
You still get off it, and you feel fine.
Your legs aren't cramped.
WES SILER: What time did we start riding this morning?
GRANT RAY: We started at 7 o'clock in the morning.
WES SILER: I started at 6:00 AM.
GRANT RAY: No, you didn't.
WES SILER: Yes, I did.
GRANT RAY: No, you didn't.
WES SILER: It was 6:20.
GRANT RAY: You didn't even text me until 6:50.
WES SILER: All right.
It's 5 o'clock now.
We've been riding for--
GRANT RAY: Do some math.
WES SILER: 7:00 to 5:00.
GRANT RAY: Do some math.
WES SILER: Five--
We've run for 10 hours.
[LAUGHTER]
WES SILER: I'm really bad at math.
We've run for 10 hours.
I have zero aches or pains.
Nothing on me is sore.
I can feel all my body parts, which is rare.
I couldn't have said the same if I'd come up on a superbike.
JAMIE ROBINSON: You obviously didn't have to try and pick up
the Stelvio, because otherwise--
WES SILER: Yeah, you must be sore.
[LAUGHTER]
WES SILER: More more squats in the gym today.
JAMIE ROBINSON: Not close.
[ROCK MUSIC]