The Other Half of the Dream Garage

Chase's Tuono review ended with a confession. This one ends with a blueprint. After riding the V2 S, he announced his new two-bike dream stable on camera: a Tuono 660 Factory for sporty weekends and the Multistrada V2 S for everything else.

"Everything else" is the entire bike in four words. Sport-touring, commuting, canyon days, highway hauling. The Multistrada V2 S does all of it without making you pick. It's the bike you buy when you've stopped pretending your commute is a race and started caring about the 300 miles that come after the fun part.

Performance highlights

The 890cc V2 is the engine Ducati should have built a decade ago. 115 horsepower, 68 lb-ft of torque, and a delivery curve that throws you back in any gear at any speed. Chase: "This V2 has so much fun torque down low. It does not matter what gear you're in, this bike will throw you back instantly." That's what earns the throttle response a 9. It's not brutal. It's just constant.

Agility gets an 8 because the 445 lb wet weight doesn't feel like 445 lb wet. Even in traffic, even in tight lane changes, the V2 S flicks. Not R7-flicks. But "nobody should be able to do this with a 5-gallon tank" flicks.

The brakes are a matched pair of Brembos with a Brembo master cylinder, and they earn their 8 with feel, not just bite. Initial softness, then a sharp squeeze. The kind of progressive lever you can trust one-finger at 70 mph in the wet. Chase got rained on during this ride, sideways rain, and the bike stayed planted enough that he kept talking to the camera about stability instead of panicking.

Acceleration is a 7, which tracks. The V2 only revs to 10,000 rpm, so the pull ends sooner than you'd expect from 890cc. But the 40–80 roll-on in second gear "felt like literally nothing." Second is the move. First is too reved. Write that down.

The suspension is where the "S" pays for itself. Skyhook semi-active electronic damping front and rear. Ducati's best setup, lifted from the top-tier Multistrada range and dropped onto this. It earns a 9 and it's borderline a 10. Chase flat-out said: "Skyhook suspension is one of my absolute favorite things about the Multistrada." It adapts mid-corner. It calms mid-bump. It disappears when you stop needing to think about it.

Rider experience & tech

Comfort is a 9 and it's the score that separates this bike from every sportbike in the review backlog. The seat is hard enough to support long days but shaped right. No hotspot, no numbness at 200 miles. Body position: mildly aggressive legs, upright torso, hands naturally on the bars. Chase said he could "ride this bike for literal days." With the Skyhook keeping the chassis flat and the torque curve doing the acceleration work, he's probably right.

The one-finger adjustable windscreen deserves its own sentence. Ducati nailed it. At 80 mph it's a clean pop-up, wind over the top of the helmet, no buffeting. On a sport-tourer, that's the difference between a comfortable ride and a three-hour headache.

Tech lands at 8. The TFT is a step down from the V4 S dashboard. Slightly less refined UI, slightly less slick animations. But the V4 S costs $10k more, so you're not really losing. The menus are clear, the ride modes (Urban, Touring, Sport, Wet, Enduro) are customizable, cruise control works (with one annoyance: no forward-rotate cancel), quickshifter is crisp both directions, and the buttons feel more durable than the V4 S's top-tier plastic. Ease of use is 8 because none of this fights you. It all sits where your thumbs already are.

Versatility is the honest 8. City traffic, highway hauling, twisty mountain roads, sudden Georgia downpours. Chase did all four in one first-ride video. The bike handled every one of them without complaint. This is the "does-it-all" bike in Ducati's lineup now.

The Chase Score & final thoughts

With a Chase Score of 79/100. Great Tier. The Multistrada V2 S would score higher if it cost less. Fun-for-the-money at 5 is the only real drag on the sheet, and the reason is $19,295. You're getting Skyhook, Brembos, the V2 engine, and a genuinely class-leading seat. But you're paying flagship money for a middleweight. That's defensible. It's just not cheap.

Buy it if you want one ADV that does everything and you can justify the sticker. Skip it if you're torn between this and something $5k lighter on the wallet. There's a BMW F 900 XR in this exact conversation that deserves the test ride before you sign. But if you're already looking at the Multistrada V4 S and blinking at $28k, this V2 S is the bike Ducati built for you.