America’s top-selling and leading motorcycle magazine, Cycle World has announced its “10 Best Bikes of 2011” and among them awarded Italian manufacturer, Ducati, with “Best Open Streetbike” award for the Multistrada 1200 S Sport and “Best Cruiser” for the incredible new Diavel Carbon. 

It is for the second successive year that the game-changing Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Sport has won the “Best Open Streetbike” award, underlining the incredible success of the innovative 4-bikes-in-1 concept that has made it Ducati’s top-selling model world-wide.

Recognising the motorcycle’s design, Cycle World wrote:

“For the second year running, Ducati’s Multistrada 1200 S Sport has proven that its do-anything design, awesome on and off-road performance and category-leading features deserve recognition… Its tall adventure-bike stature puts its pilot in a comfortable and commanding seating position. Even in standard form, without the Sport’s excellent electronically adjustable Öhlins suspension, Ducati Traction Control, ABS and multiple-power-mode, ride-by-wire fuel injection, this Italian V-Twin is a sure winner. But with these weapons at its disposal, the Multistrada 1200 S Sport is one of the most capable and potent all-around machines we’ve ever tested.”

When unveiled at the Milan motorcycle show at the end of 2010, the Ducati Diavel represented a bold departure from the company’s sporting image, but the Bologna based manufacturer combined its sport technology and experience with elements of cruiser styling to present its own interpretation. This courageous, out-of-the-box thinking is something that has set Ducati aside from its competitors and enabled it to constantly redefine established sectors of the market.

Cycle World celebrated the Diavel’s challenge to the industry and wrote:

“Sure, you can go apehanger, floorboards or any number of more traditional routes in this most traditional of categories. Or you can say, Screw it! and let the focus groups focus on their navels. Ducati did just that, channelling the performance-minded spirit of classic American V-Twins like the Crocker and infusing it with garlic and other more modern powerful Italian spices (such as carbon fiber) to come up with one of the coolest, fastest, most fun motorcycles ever made, one that happens to be a “cruiser.”…it was impossible not to pick it as Best Cruiser.”

This important recognition mirrors the current success of Ducati in the US, where the famous Bologna brand has turned crisis into opportunity, with exciting product responsible for increasing its first half-year sales by 18.1% compared to 2010. In a market which has actually retreated by 8.8%, this clearly underlines the value of the award-winning Ducati Diavel and Multistrada 1200 as well as the Hypermotard 796, Monster 696 and 796 models. With the new Monster 1100EVO about to arrive stateside, Ducati are highly confident of their continued performance in the very important US market .