Four years? I can’t quite believe it. Where’d they go? Although, looking back suggests that starting and building a couple of companies alongside the renovation of our old Highland farmhouse is going to swallow up a chunk of years with but a passing whoosh. Which is my excuse for what’s sitting in front of me – an exactly four-year-old Multistrada 1200S which shows a pathetically low total of 8,000 miles. Actually, it displays a mileage of 700, because the clocks have been replaced under warranty. Of which more anon. But those are many fewer miles than I used to do in a year – my 46,000 mile ST4s sits smugly alongside in the stable, on its charger, currently awaiting a light restoration and rodent extraction before being put back into circulation. As mine was one of the first of this new generation of Ducatis off the production line, it’s probably now worth taking a critical look at what’s not worked as well as I might have hoped as well as summarising my thoughts about the bike now and whether my initial opinions have changed.

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