Ducati Globetrotter

Indian motorcyclist Vir Nakai to ride a Multistrada Enduro in Ducati round-the-globe trip

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The seven Ducati Globetrotters 90th have been selected and the round-the-world trip is ready to retrace the most significant stages of the 90 years of history belonging to Ducati. Over 30,000 kilometres await the seven “torchbearers”, split into a relay race as they step in to replace each other on the Multistrada 1200 Enduro, recording the places and people that have built the brand’s history in an online diary.

One of the seven finalists is Indian motorcyclist Vir Nakai who will leave for the journey on Monday July 4, 2016, exactly 90 years after Ducati was founded. Nakai will start out from the Borgo Panigale factory. A parade of motorcycles from the DOC’s (Ducati Owners Clubs), will escort Nakai from Misano to Bologna to officially start this adventure.

The seven riders will respectively undertake the seven different legs of this round-the-world trip on a Multistrada 1200 Enduro. A relay across 3 continents, passing from one to another will be a specially designed “torch” created by the Ducati Design Center to symbolically spread the fire of passion around the globe, the passion that burns and fuels the spirit of Ducati.

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So who are these seven globetrotters whom you would envy and where would they ride?

BOLOGNA-MOSCOW Rider: VIR NAKAI – INDIA

37 years old, Vir has a motorcycle repair shop in Mumbai, but he is a travel writer and photographer. Motorcycling is all his life has been since he was a child, travelling on the tank of his father’s bike. He has travelled throughout India, from the Himalayas to Bangalore, and in the coming venture he would like to ‘absorb every drop of it in order to become a part of it, smell the scents, smile and tell the tale’.

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN ROUTE Rider: STEVE FRASER – AUSTRALIA

50 years old, from Kalamunda, Perth, Steve describes himself as a “professional photographer and adventurer”. Specialised in portraying panoramas, at the age of 8, Steve would run home from school to get on his little bike and ride it into the night. He loves to learn about new cultures and experience the intense sense of adventure while riding a motorbike. Sharing the experience is what he is passionate about.

JAPAN Rider: JESSICA LEYNE – BELGIUM

27 years old, from Leke, Flanders, Jessica is a maths teacher and web designer – but above all, as she says, “has more oil and fuel than blood in her veins”. She has visited Norway and Romania, Slovakia and Italy riding her motorcycle, with no obstacles that would have stopped her – not even the frozen visor, mud up to the saddle or as much as a fractured wrist. Because “on a motorbike I’ve had many challenging days, but I’ve never had a single bad day”.

SAN FRANCISCO – INDIANAPOLIS Rider: EDUARDO GENERALI – BRAZIL

28 years old, from Itu, São Paulo State, Eduardo is a travel guide and instructor. His passion for bikes, which his father passed on to him, has become his job. He arranged and conducted tours through the Atacama desert in Chile, in Patagonia and Bolivia. But the journey that he loved most was the one accomplished with his brother – 30,000 km from Brazil to Alaska. He loves motorcycling so much, that when he’s not riding, he’s planning the next trip.

INDIANAPOLIS – LISBON Rider: SAMUEL BENDALL – USA

31 years old, from Los Angeles, a brilliant journalist and photographer, at the age of 5, Samuel decided to devote himself entirely to his passions: writing, photography, travel and especially motorcycling, also as an instructor. “Since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to explore, learn about new cultures and travel the world” says this Ducati Globetrotter. “Today I can finally accomplish that dream on a Multistrada Enduro and it’s going to be awesome!”

LISBON – ISLE OF MAN Rider: HUGO WILSON – UK

54 years old, motorcycle magazine publisher, Hugo comes from Stamford in Lincolnshire – the land of Isaac Newton, Margaret Thatcher, as well as of great explorers such as Sir John Franklin. He has travelled by motorcycle mostly around Europe and the Mediterranean. A writer and photographer, he admits his passion for motorcycling started at the age of 10 when he first saw his cousin’s Ducati. “It was love at first sight! And when I finally bought my first bike, it could only have been a Ducati… Once a Ducati, always a Ducati.”

THE ISLE OF MAN – BOLOGNA Rider: TIMO SCHÄFER – GERMANY

30 years old, from Karlsruhe, Timo is a mechanical engineering student with a passion for motorcycles that he acquired from his brother. His first motorcycle was a Cagiva Elephant, so he likes to say that Ducati actually was a question of fate (the Cagiva Elephant had a Ducati engine, when the latter became part of the Castiglioni Group). Cheerful and enthusiastic, he wants to live every adventure to the full.

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