Ariel Ace
ARIEL ACE
ONE OF THE FABLED NAMES IN BRITISH MOTORCYCLING IS BACK IN THE BIKE BUSINESS AFTER MORE THAN 40 YEARS
Gary Inman
The roller doors are up and through the openings, in adjacent, purpose-built industrial units sit a dozen Ariel Atoms, the Honda-powered, British-built pocket rocket that rewrote the rule book on a street-legal car's power-to-weight ratio. The Atom accelerates quicker than a Bugatti Veyron and changes direction like a hummingbird. Despite being in production 14 years, the Atom still commands a nine-month waiting list and causes slack-jawed gawking from people on the street. From this fiercely independent, self-owned, self-financed success story comes a motorcycle: the Ariel Ace.
But the Atom and Ace have very different characters. The car is twitchy, insanely quick, and yes, road legal, but it’s extreme by just about every measure. It doesn’t really even have any bodywork. The Ace isn’t trying to emulate the Atom. A mile riding the prototype confirms all that, but both are the result of original thought.
If you didn’t get the message by looking at the Ace, I’ll spell it out: The bike was not conceived to compete with the new breed of super-nakeds. It’s much closer to the spirit of a Ducati Diavel than a KTM1290 Super Duke R.
The British company, with just 18 employees, knows its limits and can’t compete with Japanese or European makers when it comes to pure performance. Instead, its unique selling proposition is creating a production machine that will be individually tailored to a customer’s desires without being a pure custom. Ariel has built 1 a long relationship with Honda using its car engines in the Atom, so the f company built the bike around the heart of another Honda—the i,237cc V-4 used in the VFR1200F. The prototype Ace I’m riding is in “cruiser” configuration. That means a 29.3-inch seat height, low pegs, streetbike bars, and a girder fork. There are options for a
conventional fork (VFR-spec Showa or Öhlins Road & Track); clip-on bars; mid-mount or high footpegs; various tailpipes; and a sport seat. The two ends of the Ace spectrum—Cruiser and Sport—are very different, but buyers can mix and match components and set up as they wish.
Leaving the factory, it takes me a while to warm to the Ariel in this configuration. At low speeds, the steering is heavier than I expected. The bars are slightly too far from the low seat, and it doesn’t take too much effort to get the pegs down in corners. But it is billed as a performance cruiser, after all.
Looking at the girder fork—machined from billet with a multi-adjustable, MotoGP-derived Öhlins TTX shock front and center—I was expecting a magic carpet ride, but it was harsh on back roads. I reduced spring preload but didn’t experiment enough to find a sweet spot. Since my ride, the company has worked on shock settings prior to the start of production.
The gearbox, all Honda, is ponderous. Gearshifts had to be deliberate, especially at lower revs (Honda’s DCT transmission is an option). The V-4 growl is a treat, and thrust is what you’d expect from a claimed 173-hp V-4. The Ace retains the VFR’s shaft final drive.
Dynamically, the Ace is saying nothing new. Not bad, just not noteworthy in 2015. It’s a 160-plus-mph engine, with traction control, and the chassis has strong, combined ABS brakes. It is accomplished, without quirks. On this ride, the suspension felt nowhere near as good as Aprilia’s semi-active
suspension as fitted to the Caponord, for example. But I do get in the Ace’s groove and it’s engaging. Handling isn’t wayward, but all 507 pounds of the Ace need to be ridden— none of this superbike “think about the apex and you’ve hit it” stuff. And while it is labeled a cruiser, it’s no Harley. The feeling is closer to well-sorted big, four-cylinder retro than anything from Milwaukee.
The strength of the Ace lies in its design and ownership experience. This is a bike that will be tailor-made for buyers. “We like people coming up with strange requests,” says Ariel’s founder, Simon Saunders. An analogy Ariel uses is that of a Savile Row suit. “Anyone with enough money can buy an Armani suit and walk out with it the same day, but if you want tailor-made, you have to go and talk about it, get measured, go back for a fitting, and wait for it,” he says. Each bike will be built by one employee, from start to finish. Owners are even invited to visit and witness part of the weeklong build.
Base price is 20,000 pounds, or about $31,300 as of this writing, and Ariel offers the bike in the US after production begins in January. For that kind of money, there are a lot of components from the $15,999 VFR1200F—engine, ECU, braking system, wheels, fork, shock—all well proven but not stuff that makes a heart beat faster. The rest is special though. The frame is incredible—seven pieces of aluminum, all machined from billet. The trellised piece is stylistically reminiscent of the Atom, and it requires 4.5 million lines of CNC programming to produce. The girder fork is made the same way. The several offered fuel tanks are carbon fiber; headlight brackets and heel plates are titanium; and the digital dash is from the Atom, connected via pleasingly chunky military-spec connectors.
With its Honda mechanicals, groundbreakingly beautiful chassis, eye-catching styling, decent quirk-free ride, and English craftsmanship, the Ace has a lot going for it. While we’d like a bit more of the Atom’s bonkers performance, if you think the Diavel is too common, too boring, Ariel has your bike. ETMM
