There For the Road
There for the Road
Georgis to Daytona Beach on sportbikes without boundaries
DAVID EDWARDS
YOU SAY YOU'RE SUCH A FLAMING BACKROAD ACE YOU CAN FEATHER A CBR929's GUMBALL MICHELINS right to their very edges. . .you can whip on an RSV Mille like some kind of sick, sadistic jockey. . .you can tip a GSX-R750 over 'til the warning stickers scrape...
Of course you can-didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Some of us, though, need something a little more, well, mellow. Blame it on a bum basketball knee or the creeping onset of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or maybe an expanda-tummy that takes offense at being draped over a fuel tank, but spit-in-your-eye, takeno-prisoners repli-racers just don’t cut it anymore.
Not to say we’re ready for floorboards, pullback bars and the Chrome Accent Group, mind you. No, we want meaty engine performance, we want serious lean angle, we want brick-wall brakes, we want 100-mph wind protection, we want style and panache. What we want are sensible sportbikes.
Which brings us to the competent cluster of 3x3’ers shown here.
First up, alphabetically, is the Aprilia SL 1000-we’ve been asked not to call it the Falco, never mind the fairing decals or the wording in current U.S. ads. Whatever... This is the second big-bike model from the Noale, Italy-based manufacturer, powered by a retuned version of the liquid-cooled, dohc, Rotax-built V-Twin found in the impressive RSV Mille. How retuned, you ask?
APRILPA SL 1000
A Y2K styling A Same wheels, strong Brembo brakes as the Mille A Multi-function instruments
Downs Pod-like taillight/license bracket may be a tad overstyled Same semi-pulsing, servoassisted clutch as the Mille Lap-timer means you can’t lie at track days anymore Costliest critter here
Well, you’ve got a couple of choices. As shipped, the SL makes all of 84 rearwheel horsepower, 10 or more under the other two bikes in this set. Salvation, though, is as easy as tilting the fuel tank back, popping the airbox lid and tugging on the bung that’s shoved up the box’s backside, enlarging the air inlet from the size of your thumb to one big enough for a fist to fit through. That and the simple clipping of one ECU wire yields a whopping 22-bhp gain plus an additional 8 foot-pounds of torque, leap-frogging the SL to the head of the horsepower class. No muffler mods are required. Tank up to tank down and ready to roll takes all of five minutes, and that’s the way we tested the Aprilia, since you’d be a simp to run the thing in as-delivered form.
So tweaked, the SL’s motor was the most fun in this group, a real runner, always eager to accelerate, downshifting strictly optional. Twin balance shafts knock down the worst of the 60-degree Twin’s inherent vibration, though a few tingles sneak by at certain revs. Character builders.
Wrapped around all that Austrian oomph is a gorgeous polished aluminum frame special to the SL, with twin sculpted side beams running from steering head to swingarm pivot. Further distancing the Falco (oops, sorry) from the Mille is its all-new bodywork, especially the highly fluted half-fairing, and its 2-into2 stainless-steel exhaust. Of the three bikes here, the SL is clearly the style king, easily the most modem looking.
Paradoxically, the SL, this group’s sportiest bike, felt the least at home in the twisties-at first, anyway. Our testbike was
turned over to us with 1500 miles of mostly straight-up wear
on its tires, which gave awkward turn-in. A little Don Canet “profiling” rounded out the rubber, but like the RSV, the SL preferred a certain style of cornering; in this case a slight hanging-off with a fairly forceful hand at the bars.
We tried increasing rear spring preload to get more weight on the front end, but as delivered the Sachs shock was already maxed out. A little recalibration, perhaps,
Aprilia?
Another gripe: In this trio, intended to mow down miles and not just apexes, the SL ended up sucking hind teat in the ergo department, with thin seat padding, the lowest low clip-ons and the highest footpegs. Note the action pic of Exec. Ed. Catterson, not exactly giraffelike at 6-foot-1, and the angle of his knee bend. “It’s a bit of a rack,” he said after a two-hour drone on mostly straight roads.
HONDA VFRSOO
Ups Single-sided swingarm still cool Integrated, “stalkless” turnsignals A Increasingly rare metal gas tank compatible with magnetic bags A Best finished instrument panel
Downs ▼ Could use a little more steam ▼ What happened to the red paint? ▼ After all this time, why no optional luggage?
At the opposite end of the comfort scale is Honda’s VFR800 Interceptor, with probably three times as much tush cush, clip-ons maybe 2 inches higher, and footpegs an inch lower and an inch farther forward. It’s no secret we like the VFR. A lot. Now in its fourth generation and fuel injected, Honda’s 750/800 VFour has taken home no less than 12 of Cycle World's Ten Best Bikes trophies-in fact, there wasn’t a single year in the ’90s that the VFR went away empty-handed.
Constant refinement is the key. With a history that spans back to 1983, this may be the most polished streetbike ever'sold. Every rider/machine interface works so smoothly that it almost seems like the whole bike is outfitted with tiny, high-grade ball bearings. But, thankfully, the Interceptor-unlike some Hondas we could mention-has managed to escape Hamamatsu with its own distinct personality. Call it the Gary Cooper of sportbikes. Unflappably cool and supremely capable.
Most of that character comes from the motor, a 90-degree VFour with gear drive to its two sets of double-overhead cams. This really is a best-of-both-worlds situation, with the grunt of a Twin down low and the revability of a Multi on top, accompanied by a soul-stirring (and surprisingly loud) howl near its 12,000-rpm redline. Honda may have given up the V-Four as a Superbike race weapon, but on the street it’s still a contender.
In this gutsy company, though, the Honda’s 781cc seem slightly anemic, down in toique to both the 995cc Triumph and the 998cc Aprilia. In passing situations or when playing tag with the other two, the VFR requires more toe-tapping on the shift lever.
TRIUMPH SPRINT RS
Ups Priced competitively An inline engine with soul Extensive line of sporttouring accessories
Downs 1980s styling Buzziest motor here Cheesy side reflectors stolen from Schwinn store
Real-world handling remains an Interceptor " strongpoint. Plush suspension around town remains so at speed and never gets wallowy. Steering is precise and low-effort, no hangingoff histrionics needed. This is an easy bike to ride at a brisk seven/eight-tenths pace all day long. Honda has evolved its third-generation Linked Brake System almost to the point of transparency-one of our testers was deep into his second day in the saddle before he was reminded of the linked, proportioned, multi-pad setup. It really is that good, though we’d suggest that the (usually) lesser skilled riders of, say, cruisers would be better served by LBS. Most VFR pilots we know are pretty good on the brakes already.
Other than its torque deficit, there’s not much to complain about here. Because of the VFR’s side-mount radiators, the fairing has a mildly slab-sided appearance, accentuated by its yellow paint, the only color available this year. And for a bike whose byword is refinement, taking off the rear seat cowl and folding in the passenger grabrails leaves some very unfinished-looking slots and holes in the tailsection.
Speaking of slots and holes, let’s move on to the Triumph Sprint RS, whose half-fairing is liberally riddled with the things. Its overabundance of openings aside, the plastic does a pretty good job of air-splitting, understandable when you realize the RS is basically a stripped-down version of the Sprint ST, surprise winner of CWs Best Sport-Tourer trophy last year.
As a cost-saving measure, both Sprints utilize a conventional wide-beam aluminum frame, as opposed to the distinctive oval-tube affair seen on the Daytona and Speed Triple. Happily, Triumph’s trademark Tripie—liquidcooled, dohc’ed and with four valves per pot-is in attendance, its powerband rearranged via camshafts and reprogrammed EFI for added midrange. Run this motor to redline and you’re rewarded with one of the great stock-piped soundtracks in the sport. Yes, there are bands of vibes lurking about here and there, but for most of us this only added to the experience.
Give a call to whoever’s in charge of suspension and handling over at Triumph. Just like the TT600 reviewed in the preceding 3x3, this is one sweet-steering motorcycle. A light touch at the bars gets the Sprint cranked over, with some of the best feedback and front-end feel we’ve ever experienced on a stfeetbike-every tester went out of his way to compliment the RS’s great steering. Suspension (Showa) is excellent, too, equally at home on freeway or backroad. Brakes (Nissin) are strong, though without the same level of feel as the SL and VFR binders. We’d go to stainless lines and maybe experiment with different pad compound.
If the Aprilia is styled for the new millennium and the Honda represents the best of the Nineties, then the Sprint seems to come from an earlier time-good or bad depending upon your particular tastes, though most of us weren't overly enamored. Certainly, the bike is attention-grabbing in metallic orange, and if our time with the RS is any indication, the company’s PR campaign must be working-we got very few, “Triumph? Are they back in business?” queries.
If the Suggestion Box is open, we’d like to see a betterfinished inner fairing. The view over the triple-clamp is decidedly cheap, with bare wires, headlight bucket and the fairing’s subframe on display. Also, while it’s nice to have the engine in plain view, cynics among us noted that the motor’s left side, with its alternator, water pump and various hoses, might best be left covered up. And apparently residents of the U.K. have differently shaped left hands than the rest of us. How else to explain Triumph’s insistence on strangely arched clutch levers, with way too shallow a bend? We’ve yet to find anyone who likes the lever.
Overall impressions, then. Three bikes with three distinct—and immensely appealing-personalities. The Triumph has just a touch of Olde World quirkiness about it. The least “modern” of these three, it is nonetheless a great traveling companion, anchored by its world-class steering and fun-toflog motor. This is a motorcycle you could own for a long, long time. The Aprilia, while several steps less radical than the Mille, is still more of a Sunday-morning tool than a sport-tourer. If that’s what you’re after, if a bike with buckets of character is what you want, there may not be a better choice. The SF also serves notice that not-so-tiny Aprilia is on the move, a player in the world market.
Which leaves the Honda. Frankly, we’re just about out of superlatives for this bike. It is, simply put, the best sporty streetbike of the modern era. Now, if Honda takes it up to a full lOOOcc, brings back the red paint and designs-in a set of detachable hard luggage, there’d be little reason to buy anything else.
