Dorsoduro 750 (MY2008)

No complaints here, and no apologies from the bike either. The front brake arrives with real supermoto authority rather than the softened, street-friendly tune so many bikes in this class settle for. Grab a fistful and it pulls you down with conviction, the kind of immediate, trustworthy stopping power that lets you carry speed precisely because you know it's there.

What sells the chassis to me is how wide its appeal runs. A newer rider stays on top of it without feeling overwhelmed, and a rider like me, long past folding into a full race tuck, gets a fit that's every bit as satisfying. It turns in with intent yet asks little of you to hold a line, and that even-handedness across skill levels is genuinely hard to engineer.

For me the three maps are the real story, and they earn their keep. Sport hands over the harder, punchier delivery, demanding enough that you work the motor instead of just pointing it. Touring holds the same peak output but smooths the response until you stop babysitting the throttle and start reading the road, and that's where I left it for most of the day. Roll the throttle shut and the engine braking eases off cleanly instead of grabbing, so the bike stays composed as you set up for a turn. Sport is the setting that reminds you a 90-degree twin can still ask something of you, while Touring is the one I'd live with. Pick the map to suit the mood and the same engine hands you two genuinely different bikes.

What reassures me first is how the thing is built. Frame, swingarm, and wheels all read as quality, with substantial materials and careful fit at every joint, and the plain standard machine carries itself just as well as the dressed-up show bikes. The electronics held up too. A three-map setup looked like a gamble on a 2008 street bike, but owner reports over the years say it stayed solid, and updates through the production run only improved it. The catch is the upkeep. The secondary chain wants tensioning more often than I'd expect from a bike in this class, so it earns a permanent spot on your maintenance list. The valve clearance inspection is the bigger ask: the intervals themselves are reasonable, but checking the clearances on this V2 is more involved than on a comparable parallel twin, so budget the labor accordingly.

The riding position is built for long days as much as quick ones. Power that stays manageable and a chassis that never gets flustered make this an easy bike to spend hours on, and it's a genuinely sane pick for anyone easing back into riding after time away. The real performance sits right there in reserve, it just doesn't lead with it, so the ease of it never feels like it cost you any of the fun.

This is the trick almost nobody pulls off. The Dorsoduro is genuinely forgiving and approachable, yet it never looks or feels watered down. Comfort and fun aren't treated as opposites here. You get beginner-friendly manners wrapped in a machine that still carries real attitude, and the proportions tell you as much before you've even thumbed the starter. That combination is the single best thing about how this bike goes about its business.

Practicality comes down to one stubborn flaw: the fuel tank is too small for a bike that ranges this far on the open road. To my eye the stylist won that argument over the test rider, because the capacity simply doesn't match the machine's reach. String together a longer day or a touring run and you empty it sooner than you'd like, which makes gas stations a fixed point in your planning rather than an afterthought.