2025 Moto Guzzi Stelvio review

Prestige brands are elbowing each other firmly in the ribs for your adventure category attention. Does the Moto Guzzi Stelvio at $32,890 rideaway have the gonads to match the glamour?

What we like…

• Fabulous suspension package
• Rider comfort
• Guzzi heritage shines through

Not so much…

• It will bake your legs
• No radar cruise at standard
• Switchgear a little down home

The Stelvio Pass is a mountain pass in northern Italy bordering Switzerland. It’s revered amongst motorcyclists everywhere for its views and tight, demanding topography.

Indeed… Stelvio. The word itself for those in the knows will evoke emotion. The 70-odd cornered sinew of Italian blacktop that climbs out of the valley mist and delivers a rider to the heavens in delighted rapture. A oncer. A rite of passage.

The Stelvio Pass was also picked by the Top Gear as the ‘greatest driving road in the world’. I don’t know what the crew at Top Gear were smoking when they declared that, but I do know Jeremy liked a gallon or two of wine from time to time.

I have an opinion here, that might upset a few. I’ve ridden the Stelvio Pass and the rhetorical romance certainly doesn’t match the road. Stop-start running, 75 hairpins, full of annoyingly fit cyclists and wobbling people movers. The camber and brutally sharp nature of the corners are such that first gear is the name of the game when turning and when its wet, well it’s an eely-slick nightmare.

In fact, there is a YouTube channel devoted to people toppling over on one corner alone on the Stelvio. The bloke presents the fallen riders with a special Stelvio Band-Aid sticker, which oddly they all seem to receive with good humour. My guilty pleasure is spending way too much time logged on there.

Anyway, I couldn’t wait to get off that blessed prick of a road, to be honest. But that kinda pisses on a parade, and Lord knows I’m not into that; the view is indeed kinda magical and the coffee at Bormio is worth the trip. Enough said.

Now. That’s the road and who gives a fat rat’s passage about that? We are here to look at the bike. Indeed, what can’t be held in any negativity is the presence of the Moto Guzzi Stelvio.

Now, Guzzis have always taken my attention– you either get them or you don’t. I do. I reckon the brand is grouse. Unique, heritage-laden and classy.

I have always maintained that it must be tough to be a Moto Guzzi salesperson. You see, a half hour test ride could well have you seeing the things as agricultural and recalcitrant. Guzzis are like worthy partners. You gotta get to know them – a one night-stand just will not tell the truth. Mind, there is room for a decent one-night stand from time to time, but this is not that sort of website.

You need to belong to a Stelvio for a full weekend and then you’ll know what I’m on about. The bike sort of, accepts you and all your shortcomings, in fact, it starts to like you back. Just like a good life partner. What seems like a lumpy blurter of an engine becomes a loping antelope of power. The hard changing box becomes precise and accurate, sliding through that lovely, sorted shaft drive. And you’ll be noticed. It’s different, and so are you. Are you getting this?

To my eye the Stelvio continues the tradition that started back in 1921 in Genova, Italy. It’s a ferkin’ Moto Guzzi and joyfully inhabits all that entails. From the swish flowing lines (a tough ask in the adventure category) to the familiar throb of that 1042cc transversal 90° V-twin. That lovely eagle logo announcing you in elegant detail, tastefully dotted around the bike. I feel like a real motorcyclist aboard a Guzzi and that’s my reason for being. Period.

Speaking of big head matters. You’ll be fried in the summer and adore the thing in the winter. How so? Well, those whacking big lumps of head flood your thighs and calves with waves of radiant heat at lower speeds. I got off feeling like a an aged Jamon there at one stage. A well done Snag?

While it’s quick and nimble, performance numbers are not startling at 84.5kW at 8700rpm and105Nm at 6750rpm. For mine performance is spot-on for the design brief though. Its understressed and long-legged and that’s what I want from a big touring machine like this.

While there’s no doubt, she’s a sizeable ragazza, the bike does its best to remain compact. Seat height is 830mm aided strongly by a neat and slender mid-section to allow flat footedness while wet weight is a slightly tubby 246kg. Oh, and tubeless tyres on spoked wheels get the nod here. Love that.

Working out sizes and dimensions keeps adventure category designers up late at night. The reason for all that can be blamed directly on you and me. Yes, you’re in this too. We riders demand supreme weather protection but loudly bemoan hefty fairing and hardware weight. Well, weather protection here is impressively good and the frontal dynamic of the bike gets away with a svelte and nicely styled bike. Two birds, one stone there.

The seat is comfortable indeed, in fact better than the ‘comfort’ job fitted to my very own R 1300 GS. All day comfort with a lovely suede-style finish accommodates you and her/him/they in luxo butt-coddling.

Cockpit accommodations are roomy and the TFT screen easily read. Fact and figures available here are comprehensive and to be honest overdone for mine. Tech-heads will love it, I’m sure. I am old, lazy and blessed with a simple mind and less is more for me.

The switchgear is not backlit and to be honest felt a little brittle. I judge bikes harshly on this sort of thing and I expect a brand with the class heft and market respect of Moto Guzzi to reflect my expectation. A little underwhelmed there.

There’s an impressive array of electronic gear and rider aids. You get: collision warning, blind-spot warning, lane change warning, cruise control, electronically adjustable windscreen five rider modes (Touring, Rain, Street, Sport and Off-Road). All the tricks of the trade there and it all works well.

Suspension is Sachs at the front and KYB at the rear, both adjustable for preload and rebound damping. I found the suspension to be a highlight. The front talks to the back in a convincing manner and feedback from the road is second to none. Big marks there. Twin four-piston Brembo brakes do the job up front with a single-piston caliper on a lone disc getting the job done at the stern. There’s also cornering ABS and traction control via a comprehensive 6-axis IMU.

My test unit came equipped with the 30 and 29 litre panniers and 52 litre topbox, which is huge. It takes something of style away from the bike’s Latin lines, but my goodness, you could fit your mother-in-law in it. But no shovel, unfortunately.

Of course, there’s a broad range of accessories available to personalise the Stelvio, most of them designed to enhance the long-distance element on offer here.

So… I like the Stelvio. It has character. It’s not perfect, but it’s a very worthy player in the jam-packed Adventure Touring category. If you like it a little exotic, a little different and big-bore, dirt-capable stuff blows your hair back, I’d be looking hard here.

But give the Stelvio Pass a miss. Truly.

Photography by Ben Galli.

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Greg Leech

Snag’s career in motoring journalism spans 30 years with stints at major bike mags Australian Road Rider, Motorcycle Trader and AMCN along with contributions to just about every other outlet worth a hill of beans. He was editor of Unique Cars magazine and hosts his legendary podcast ‘Snag Says’ when he gets off his date.