Is it practical to ride an Italian sportbike from Amsterdam to Cape Town? Hardly. But if you have the mechanical know-how to improvise repairs on a Ducati 998 in the middle of the desert, the only thing holding you back from a continent-crossing adventure is the will to start one—at least according to Peter Muurman. He has some solid supporting evidence though, seeing as he’s taken his 998 through 54 countries and racked up nearly 100,000km
Very impressive, watched this a few months ago and sent it to my long time touring buddy (we went to kindergarten together, now both late 50s). He rides a 996, and has done since 2010, on our annual European tours. Frankly I don't know how he manages to get back onto the bike on day #2, let alone do consecutive days over a week or two. We've swapped bikes on occasion and, in all honesty, within a mile or two I want to swap back...
It's like with most sports bikes, you have to ride them frequently... I have some bikes that cripple me within minutes, unless I make a point of riding them repeatedly, then you sort of get the hang of them and your body reconfigures itself to "ok, this is what we do now" and then it's perfectly fine. In practice though, as a rapidly ageing and quite fair-weather individual these days... Multistrada, GS or Scrambler is the answer to all the questions.
Yes, I think you're correct. Though he's an ex racer, always wanted a 916>998 and it's his forever bike. Wouldn't suprise me if he's stipulated in his will that he wants to be buried with it... The aging process might catch up with him though, we'll see. If it does I'll be on hand to offer him another go on the MTS
