This is the new Ducati Scrambler two G and the company is calling it that because this is effectively the second generation of the scrambler. The scrambler has been around for about eight years now and this is by far the most substantial update it may look familiar, but there’s a lot that’s new underneath. This motorcycle gets a brand new chassis and the sub frame is a bolt on unit.
Now, the idea is that people in the modification scene can change that and that makes a scrambler more appealing to those who want to make a custom motorcycle out of it.
Chassis and brand new swing arm is also new and the rear shock has been moved a little in towards the center. What’s the same is that they’ve retained suspension. It’s an upside down front fork mono shock at the rear. The wheel base, wheels and tyres are the same, the chassis dimensions are the same rake and trail. Now, the idea here with the new chassis was to make this a lighter motorcycle.
The scrambler was always a small and light and easy bike. This one is 4kg lighter than before. And at about 185 kg, it’s lighter than most RE’s out on sale. So this is a really easy and accessible and a small bike. Although people who are short will appreciate the fact that the seat is just a little bit under 800mm.
So if you’re tall, you will fit. If you’re short, you’ll find this to be a friendly motorcycle.However, for those of you who like your big bike to feel big, this really won’t do it for you.
Now, for the engine, it makes the same amount of power and torque as before, but Ducati has done some work on the internals and the idea was to make the engine lighter and the gear box is improved with smooth shifts and easy to find neutral, which is a typical problem with Ducati. This is an air cool engine with a little oil cooler. It makes close to 75 horsepower, but it’s still a quick bike. You can cross 150 mph very easily and the top speed is 200kmph. So for those of you who want something quick, this bike still does that.
The downside with this engine is that it needs a valve clearance check every 12,000 kilometers and a full demo service needs to be done every 24,000 kilometers that will make ownership costs higher than with similarly priced big bikes from other brands.
But there is another side to the scrambler that will be quite nice in India.
What’s nice is that it’s very ready for India. If you think about it, there’s 150mm suspension travel at both ends, chunky tires and 175mm of ground clearance. Again, those numbers are similar to what they were earlier. But overall, this is an easy bike for our market. Now with the engine updates, one of the things Ducati change is how this bend pipe comes out of the engine. There was one pipe coming out of here and one pipe out of there. They merged on together and they went into the exhaust Ducati though says that this design will reduce the amount of heat felt on the rider and that’s something really valuable back home in India. It’s a nice slim unit but there is now a big catalyst underneath.
Another big change with this motorcycle is the electronics. The bike now gets a TFT display. Its full color and the layout is similar to what you see on the Panigale is easy to look at, easy to use. There’s also four levels of traction control. You can turn the traction control off. There’s cornering ABS, but you can’t turn the rear ABS off. It’s not really an off-road motorcycle. The foot pegs are slightly high up. You can’t turn off the ABS, so it’s a light road and like trail bike, but you wanna keep this one on the road.
Now, the good news is that when you’re on the road, it’s a really nice handling. It turns in quickly. It’ll keep up with most bikes if you’re a good rider and you will have a lot of fun that 18 inch front wheel has slightly less feel coming back to the rider, but there’s still a lot of lean angle available. Now, even though there’s just one disc brake in the front, it’s a huge 330mm unit, which is the same size as in the Panigale. The caliper is also a Brembo m4.32 which can be seen in Panigale V2 making the overall braking performance good.
To make it look even more premium, the fuel tank comes with an all new design, nice aluminium panels are added to the side. The scrambler is now available in nine bright colors and there are three variants in total at the moment.