Outsider: Hardening up the Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled

If there’s a spiritual heir to the go-anywhere machines of the 1960s, it’s the Scrambler Ducati Desert Sled. Unlike most modern-day scramblers, the Duc is happy in the rough stuff. Even if it’s unlikely to be thrashed as much as the 1963 Bonneville that Bud Ekins built for Steve McQueen. When our man Matt rode the Desert Sled a year ago at the launch in Spain, he was impressed: “The Desert Sled is the scrambliest scrambler money can buy,” he said. But of course, some people will always want to push things further—and one of those folks is former Paris-Dakar...