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2017 Ducati Scrambler | 2017 Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled review, test ride

1,711 views · Published 11 August 2017 · 2:19 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: MOTO INTRODUCTION · 2017 · Autos & Vehicles

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By now we're all quite familiar with the Scrambler look; retro is certainly in. The Desert Sled has roughly the same basic silhouette as the base Scrambler, but there's more, just so much more. For starters, it's a lot taller now, but quite deceptive, as it looks like the smaller street-oriented Scramblers from afar. On the surface, it's got a nice raised front mud guard and a more upright handlebar, but it's beneath the surface where all the real magic has taken place. 

The chassis has been beefed up to handle the extra torsional forces that come during dirt riding. There's an extra piece of tubing on the lateral edges of the frame that help with chassis stiffness. It also gets new side plates at the swingarm pivot junction that'll help take some engine load off the frame. The new swingarm is reinforced and longer than the one on base Scramblers. While up front the Desert Sled gets updated triple clamps and widened inter-fork clearance. All this has been done to increase overall stiffness, to ensure that this bike will still be standing, no matter what you throw at it. In fact, this version of the Scrambler has definitely been designed with airborne shenanigans in mind. 

Ducati has equipped the Desert Sled with a fully adjustable 46mm Kayaba fork at the front, and a rebound/preload-adjustable Kayaba shock at the rear; quite a big jump from the base Scrambler that gets 41mm Kayaba forks. Both ends have a whole 200mm of travel, which is more than what some of the larger adventure bikes have. It's also equipped with 19-inch front and 17-inch rear spoked wheels that are shod with dual-purpose Pirelli Scorpion Rally STR tyres. And boy, are these tyres great! Even in damp conditions on the street they provided more than sufficient grip and performed surprisingly well, with none of the squirm that comes from knobbly tyres. Obviously, on the dirt, they were just excellent. These tyres share a 50/50 on-road, off-road bias.

The only thing that has remained relatively unchanged, aside from the body panels, is Ducati’s Desmodue 803cc L-twin engine which was only updated to meet Euro-IV emissions standards. Thankfully, though, the bike hasn’t lost any power in that update. The Desert Sled produces 73hp and 67Nm of torque. It also gets a redesigned throttle tube now, which has certainly sorted out the throttle issue on the older models. The weight, however, has gone up to about 207kg, which is roughly 20kg more than the Scrambler Icon; this can also be attributed to the heavier hardware needed to meet up to the new stricter emission norms.

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