DUCATI SCRAMBLER
NICE SLED DUDE The Scrambler gets even more retro treatment
W
hen Italian culture is married to American culture sometimes, just sometimes, wonderful things happen. This would appear to very much be the case where the Scrambler Desert Sled is concerned. Taking the cooler than cool urban Scrambler from Ducati and giving it the off road treatment, has resulted in a surprisingly good motorcycle. Calling it a desert sled was first done by our Californian cousins who would have modified standard road bikes way back in the eighties to make them dirt track resistant. We’re a cynical lot here at BBG and seeing yet another Scrambler emerge from the Ducati stable usually isn’t enough to get us to stop smoking our cigar for long enough for the sales man to explain what we’re looking at.
This one, however, has gold rims and spoked wheels. And we’re suckers for a set of spoked wheels on gold rims. We really are. So much so that we had to take it from the dealership and rush to the centre of Dublin where we parked it up outside a Dublin 2 café before relighting the same cigar and ordering a chi latte, taking a seat outside and settling in to watch the army of hipsters that the neighbourhood seems to produce look over the bike with what can only be described as a terrible need in their poor little eyes. The interesting thing was that on the way into the city the bike seemed to perform like a bike. There was very little of the ‘Land of joy’ twaddle that we’ve been exposed to over the last few years since the original Scrambler was launched. The Sled is comfortable to sit on and carries Ralph, our
MBLER WORDS Paul Browne IMAGES Ralph McKeon
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22/03/2018 16:22