“I didn’t know Ducati made offroad motorbikes, it’s kinda cute!” said my son, an avid rider, when I showed him the latest Technic Motorcycle 42238 Ducati Desmo450 MX Factory (457 pieces, AU$75(?)/£44.99/US$49.99/€49.99). His response is not entirely surprising given that Ducati is most well known for their powerful (and loud) roadbikes. This particular model is a version of Ducati’s first motocross bike (not quite the same as ‘offroad’).

This set was provided by LEGO as part of the latest wave of Technic sets and it stands out as only having two wheels. LEGO fairly consistently has some motorcycle in the repertoire but bikes aren’t nearly as common as cars.

Let’s go through this relatively small set quickly and have a look what it offers for technic lovers of bikes

Bike in a box

The 42238 Ducati Desmo450 MX Factory comes in a box with quite a striking backdrop. It is a tear-open box containing 5 bags and 2 loose wheels and tires. I have often seen wheels packed in a separate plastic bag, but this seems to do the trick just fine.

There is a significant stickers sheet included with 15 stickers, bringing us to a sticker ratio of 3.3%, which is quite high but not the worst I’ve seen. (42236 Custom Garage Ford Mustang GT Car is considerable worse, review coming soon)

Looking at a bike

I like Technic sets for their mechanisms and gearing. Unfortunately over the years Technic sets have increasingly been aiming towards more realistic looking machines, which means that most of the machinery (in particular in cars) is hidden from view, so that you only really get to enjoy the intricacies during construction. This also holds for modern cars; the engine and gearbox are hidden from view and it takes quite some skill to be able to show the mechanical functionality in action. Motorcycles fill a little bit of a gap for me there; their mechanics are not quite as exposed as with a bicycle, but certainly a lot more than with a car.

Enter this Ducati dirtbike. The bike contains just the bare minimum cladding (it was designed for functionality of hooning through dirt after all) and the chain, motor and wheels are very much on display in the finished model. I subscribe to this a lot; I like naked bikes in real life, and I like the old ‘skeleton’ Technic cars for the same reason; I like seeing the mechanisms!

I like how you can see the suspension with little effort as you play with it at your leisure. The one cylinder is transparent so you can see the piston moving with wheel movements while the golden chain elegantly visualises the drive train from motor to wheel.

This is a simple model but it contains everything that I would want from a dirtbike model. A transmission would be lost on me since it would be hidden in the motor block. The panelling is accurate enough to resemble a dirt-bike and I’m not enough of a Ducati fan to care how well this matches the Ducati Desmo 450 MX specifically; it’s close enough to my eyes.

Building a bike

Perhaps I’m being lazy but I greatly enjoyed that after a single bag of building I had the frame of the build together already.

The wheel (impressive size but not really new) is added together with the golden chain by bag 2.

When we get to bag 3 the front of the bike is added where the front mudguard is created using a botanical leaf in red! Great parts usage!

The final bag (4) is used to add cladding to the bike and to hide a little bee under the seat of the Ducati. Can you tell us what the story is behind the bee? It may be a reference to the ‘buzzing’ sound of the bike, which would be funny since Ducati is otherwise well know for the characteristic roar of its road bikes.

Sticking points of a bike

At this point I had not yet applied any stickers to the set, to illustrate how much of an impact they have on a set like this. Truth be told, the actual bike also has a fair few stickers, so it seems only fair that this one follows suit.

without stickers:

and with stickers

Riding off on the bike

This is a nice little set. I think it is too expensive for what it is, but it did provide an enjoyable experience building. I suspect I will have it on display for quite some time to play with. It’s hard to provide distinct praise for this set. It’s a little simple, but I like that it doesn’t take me a week to put together. It’s a little expensive, but I think it offers better value than most Technic cars, simply because I find motorcycles more exciting than cars.

For this reason, I give 42238 Ducati Desmo450 MX Factory 4 out of 5 arbitrary praise units. It deserves your attention and consideration when it becomes available from 1st of August 2026.

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!

appendix: The parts of a bike

See below the parts included in the four bags of this set. No parts stand out in any particular way but there is nice variety and it is compact enough to promise an enjoyable evening without being a slog.