Could the Ducati Stradaperta be dirt-capable after all?

MCN just snapped these shots of a disguised Ducati Stradaperta performing extreme endurance testing on a motocross track, saying, "The bike was getting at least six feet of air over some of the jumps." Thus far, every indication has been that Ducati's new liquid-cooled adventure tourer would be heavily road-biased, with an exposed front cylinder and non-knobbly tires.
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The thinking has been that since no one would want to be stranded in a

desert, 100 miles from nowhere, by Ducati's famous reliability, the

Stradaperta would be following in the footsteps of the Multistrada in

its off-road inspiration/on-road limitation and would improve on the

Multistrada's performance with a liquid-cooled engine of either 1099 or

1198cc.

These photos would seem to prove otherwise, indicating off-road

performance capable of easily rivaling the BMW R1200GS, if not the HP2

Enduro. We suspect something a little more fishy is going on here.

Still unconvinced that the exposed and highly-tuned Italian superbike

engine could ever be suitable for true off-roading, we're going to go

out on a limb and guess that these shots are another attempt by Ducati

to build hype around the new bike. How did a spy photographer catch

such clear shots at a presumably remote location? How did he/she know

to be there in the first place? In the hands of an expert rider, the

heavy, presumably fragile Stradaperta could be made to lap a motocross

track even if, in the real world, such a feat would be considered

warranty-voiding abuse of the worst possible degree. We still expect

the Stradaperta to be more a rival for the KTM 990 SMT and Triumph

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Tiger than the R1200GS and KTM 990 Adventure. One things for sure, it's

still ugly.

via Motorcycle News

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