TESTED: MV Agusta Enduro Veloce

Let’s hear from Joe Ackroyd who’s ridden the brand new MV Journey bike…

Proper, sports activities followers, with out additional ado, let me introduce you to the MV Agusta Enduro Veloce (pronounced ‘velochai’). It’s MV’s first new bike to be launched in a number of years now, and it’s a daring assertion to determine to go down the journey bike route, nevertheless it’s a massively widespread sector, with Triumph, Ducati, Yamaha and Honda all having a powerful presence, so in addition to being a daring transfer, it’s a smart resolution, for my part; if MV desires to promote bikes, then it must diversify into different sectors of the motorbike market. 

The engineers have defined that, though it’s marketed as ‘all-purpose’, the DNA of this bike is extra sportsbike-specific. The designers wished to create a motorbike that would deal with off-road, whereas nonetheless protecting the racing heritage and efficiency that’s synonymous with the model. When you determine to half with about £20,000 of your hard-earned money, then there’s the selection of getting the Enduro Veloce in both In the past Purple/In the past Silver OR In the past Purple/In the past Silver, which I agree with, to be trustworthy. MVs needs to be crimson and silver, finish of!

The center of any automobile is the engine, and I’m so happy to have the ability to inform you that MV has completely nailed this space of the bike. The newly-designed 950cc three-cylinder motor makes 124hp and 102Nm of torque – which is greater than its most important opponents, the Ducati Desert X (110hp) and the Triumph Tiger 900 (106hp). The brand new engine has been an enormous enterprise, and the design transient was to construct one thing that might produce energy, torque and efficiency, all of the whereas being {smooth}, whereas making certain they adhere to Euro 5 emissions laws, which simply makes the job even tougher! 

The quickshifter system means which you could hold throwing gears up and down the field with ease, and every gear change provides you slightly pop and crackle such as you’d hear from a superbike. We discovered ourselves simply shifting up and down the field to hearken to mentioned popping and crackling. Whereas we’re on gearbox speak, once more, mega job from the engineers. I don’t like gentle, fluffy, super-smooth and nearly obscure gearboxes; I wish to really feel like I’m concerned and that I’m required to place some enter into the adjustments, and I believe MV’s bought the steadiness excellent. It’s not clunky and agricultural, nevertheless it has a pleasant, optimistic mechanical really feel. 

There are 4 rider modes: Touring, City, Off-road and Consumer-specific. These will not be simply gimmicks both; there’s a noticeable distinction between all of them, they usually do work properly of their respective environments. I believe there needs to be a sport mode as properly. MV has made fairly an enormous level about the way it’s created a efficiency machine, and after we bought out on the twisty roads and began to push on a bit, I discovered myself in search of a sport mode to sharpen issues up slightly and make all the pieces a bit extra aggressive. 

What I did discover was simply how good the chassis is, and the arrange of the Sachs suspension. I discover journey bikes like this could are inclined to really feel saggy and tender – and the vast handlebars can provide a extremely gentle feeling via the rider’s palms. With the Enduro Veloce, none of this was the case. The entrance finish felt planted; it didn’t dive beneath brakes; and while you opened the faucets on that joyous screaming banshee of an engine, the rear didn’t squat down, making the entrance go gentle and inflicting the bike to wander throughout the street. It was like driving a sportsbike, however my arse was sitting in a snug Alcantara/suede-esque coated saddle and my wrists didn’t harm. 

I do have a little bit of a niggle in terms of the suspension, although. The chassis and suspension arrange is superb, however for the thick finish of £20,000, I need digital suspension. Who desires to hold spherical socket spanners and screwdrivers to allow them to arrange their bike for the assorted situations they’re going to come across? And what number of of you studying this really know how one can arrange suspension or perceive what you’re doing in terms of twiddling these nobs? For a motorbike that’s all-purpose, being able to vary the suspension arrange on the fly actually is a lacking key part.

The MV comes with two completely different homologated tyre choices: the Bridgestone A41 (street tyre) and the Bridgestone AX41 (off-road bias tyre). The intelligent bods on the manufacturing unit have programmed the ECU to work in a different way and extra successfully relying on which tyre you select to suit. All it’s a must to do is inform the bike, through the sprint controls, and it does the remainder for you – very intelligent. We did our most important journey on the A41s and with the bike arrange for the street, however we additionally bought an opportunity to pattern the bike off-road with the AX41s and the suspension arrange particularly for off-road. I used to be pleasantly stunned at the way it carried out. It’s not a light-weight machine, however if you happen to did end up eager to deal with the off-road, then its greater than succesful. I don’t suppose it was fairly as agile as its opponents; it felt heavier than different lower-capacity journey bikes in the marketplace. I additionally discovered the throttle response to be too aggressive for off road-riding. 

I like this bike lots. However for me, the largest sticking level is the associated fee. At greater than £20,000, this places it £7-8k greater than the Ducati Desert X and the Tiger 900. For the individuals who will purchase this bike, cash shall be no object. The consumers of the Enduro Veloce will merely wish to personal an MV Agusta that they’ll journey day by day, and for these clients, MV has carried out a cracking job.