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YukonLT
My dealer lent me a Multi for the weekend last week and I put over 400 miles on it. Nice ride especially the skyhook suspension. The only noticeable hic although not a deal breaker is the vibration. Both the Panigale and the Monster's engines seem much smoother. Maybe it's the DVT? Notwithstanding, I'm not ready to get rid of either the Panigale or the Monster anytime soon. However, the Multistada is the ultimate do it all road warrior. Enjoy.
BTW, Please tell us the details of your thought process. I believe it would make an interesting read and may in fact serve those considering a Panigale.
It's funny you mention vibration, as my new Multistrada barely vibrates at all where my Panigale vibrated enough to tingle my toes when riding. I don't even notice it on the Multistrada. Very odd for us to have completely different experiences. Anyhoo...
I'll try to keep this short, but here goes. I have been thinking about an adventure style bike for a few years now...eyeing the KTM Adventurer to start with. I also was interested in a bagger style bike to cruise on as I thought I might enjoy that. So, this spring I saw a great deal on a Victory Hard-Ball that I jumped on. Owned the bike for about one month and it just wasn't working. It was nice for cruising, but as soon as I pushed it at all I was scraping every corner and it didn't want to handle the way I wanted to ride it. The bags were nice for some long runs, but that was it. This is when I began to ponder that maybe I still had enough sport bike blood in me to invest in a third sport bike for our garage. I started to think about it more and I came to the conclusion that I wanted a Ducati as I have wanted one for a very long time, and the Panigale is down right gorgeous in every way. I sold the Victory, bought the Panigale, and thought I was happy from there. My wife and I met riding sport bikes 12 years ago, but haven't ridden much in the past few years as life just seems to change. I figured with a new sport bike in the household, we would end up riding more, but it wasn't happening. The more I rode the Panigale myself, the more I realized that it just wasn't exactly what I was looking for right now. The bike is great in so many ways, but it really belongs on the track. It's tough to contain it on the street, you want to stretch it's legs all the time and attack. Needless to say, you are well above the speed limit every time you do this. So, after a ton of thinking about it and realizing that I should have just gone with my initial desire of an enduro/adventure style bike, I got serious about it. Enter the Multistrada. The dealership made me a great deal and I bought it. I travel the northeast visiting my customers and this bike will be fun to use for some of those trips.
If I had unlimited wealth, I'd have a bike of every style in the garage, but that's just not feasible right now. I don't want to discourage anyone from purchasing a Panigale as it really is an awesome bike. You just have to really think about what you want out of a motorcycle, and I think I jumped a little too quick to get the Panigale.