After nearly two months of new motorcycle product unveils, largely made up of new variants of existing models, Ducati has finally got around to telling us about the bike it teased way back in September. The DesertX first made its way to the stage at EICMA in 2019, but that concept was based on the existing Scrambler platform. In order to stack up against the competition in the middleweight ADV segment, Ducati had to wad that design up in a ball of paper and throw it in the wastebasket.

What we have here is a fresh from-the-ground-up chassis wrapped around the well-known Testastretta engine that the Ducatisti have come to know and love. The DesertX is the first Ducati of its kind, though it is certainly reminiscent of the 1990s Ducati-powered Cagiva Elefant in more ways than one. While Ducati will still happily sell you a full-sized Multistrada, the DesertX is a lighter and more nimble machine meant to go up against the incredibly popular Yamaha Tenere 700, KTM 890 Adventure R, Triumph Tiger 900, and the like.

The heart of the DesertX pumps with 937ccs of liquid-cooled Testastretta V-twin. It makes 110 horsepower and 68 lb-ft of torque, which sounds pretty great to my ears. Apparently Ducati has given the bike a nice short-ratio gearbox for the first five gears to give you lots of options on the trail or out in the desert, but sixth has been made extra long to make highway riding painless.

That motor powers a new steel trellis frame chassis with KYB inverted fork front and monoshock rear. You’ll get 9.1 inches of travel at the front and 8.7 inches in the rear and ground clearance of an impressive 9.8 inches. Less impressive, however, is the 34.4 inch seat height. That’ll be difficult for some shorter riders. Part of that height is due to the extremely off-road friendly 21 inch front and 18 inch rear wheels. All of this will be slowed by a pair of Brembo four-piston calipers at the front clamping 320 mm rotors and a single two-piston on the rear 265 mm disc.

The DesertX comes standard with a pretty large 5.5 gallon tank, but Ducati will sell you an additional 2.1 gallons of capacity as an accessory tank if you’re really getting off the beaten trail. So equipped, you should be able to manage at least a couple hundred miles of travel on a fill-up.

The new DesertX will be shipping to dealers in June of next year, and will start at $16,795.