2018 Mv Agusta Brutale 800 Rr Pirelli Review
The MV Agusta factory is on the shore of Lake Varese, at the base of operations of the Alps just a few minutes from the Swiss border. Brutales — and all the other MVs — are assembled in a clean, modern plant even though the buildings themselves are funky; information technology used to be a seaplane factory.
There'south a terrific sense of the storied MV racing history everywhere in the plant and the small corporate office circuitous. I toured the factory on my own prior to the launch, and the guy who does the concluding visual quality control check of each motorcycle has a work station lined with photos of Giacomo Agostini and other racers from MV's K Prix heyday.
So, in terms of stories, it was cool that MV decided to invite journalists to the factory for the launch of the 2018 Brutale 800 RR. We spent a solar day riding it on what amounted to a lap of an even bigger lake, Lago Maggiore; we even briefly crossed into Switzerland.
The scenery was spectacular. The only downside was, although the mountains around Varese are rugged, the expanse's both quite industrialized and heavily populated, and it also attracts a lot of tourists — even on a weekday in March. So most of our 24-hour interval was spent passing hundreds of cars on winding two-lane roads, commonly with very poor visibility, oftentimes right on the centerline between cars traveling in both directions, at about two and a half times the posted speed limits.
If we'd ridden that way in the States, our 24-hour interval would've ended like the final scene of "The Dejection Brothers." Just, in Italy, things similar speed limits and solid "no passing" lines between lanes must merely be suggestions, because more than than once we flew around a corner to find a Caribinieri watching traffic, and they just ignored us.
Over the course of the whole day, we saw ane guy getting a ticket. I passed the scene and then fast that all I really saw was that the bicycle was red. It did make me wonder: What the heck did that guy exercise to warrant actually being pulled over?!? Later on, during our lunch intermission, one of the MV guys mentioned that the guy who got stopped was on a new four-cylinder Panigale. Maybe the cop just wanted to come across his wheel.
As hard as we tried, we didn't come shut to exploring the limits of the Brutale 800 RR's capabilities. If there was one thing every journalist present agreed on, it was that the RR should've had a track launch. (Actually, we agreed on 2 things; everyone unanimously liked the nutrient, as well.)
Normally, the way these launches go is engineers and product specialists make a large presentation in which they tell the assembled journalists all about the myriad changes they've fabricated to this year's model. But at this launch, nigh of the presentation was devoted to changes to the company itself. Giovanni Castiglioni, MV's CEO, gave a pretty forthright explanation of the visitor'southward history over the last few years — admitting to by problems with quality control and parts support (particularly where U.South. customers were concerned) and explaining that in the last two or three years, MV dropped out of a failed strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz' AMG brand, entered into the Italian equivalent of a Affiliate 11 bankruptcy, and has come up out with a much smaller workforce, a new 49 percent owner (Timur Sardarov, the son of a Russian oligarch) and a renewed resolve to sell a smaller number of better bikes at, yes, even college prices. I interviewed both Castiglioni and Sardarov and will mail service a story on the changes MV's been through, and its strategy going forrard, very before long.
In the meantime, what near the bike?
The 2018 MV Agusta Brutale 800 RR
Chassis-wise, the new 800 RR sticks to the current MV mode by mating a steel trellis frame to stout blend plates, which concord an alloy swingarm.
Brian Gillen, MV'south caput of R&D, is an ex-pat American. He told me that while the frame looks almost identical to the previous RR's frame, the trellis is slightly longer and rake and trail figures are slightly lazier.
"We developed the previous RR on the race track, at tracks like Misano that are very smooth," he said, while he waggled an imaginary handlebar for emphasis. "It worked corking nether those conditions, simply it could be a little intimidating on ordinary roads unless you were really ready for it."
Other primal bicycle parts are a Marzocchi fork and Sachs shock, both of which are adjustable for leap preload, and compression and rebound damping. The front brakes are the usual suspects: radial-mountain four-pot Brembo calipers take hold of 320 mm discs. Interestingly, the brake master cylinder is a Nissin product. In Europe and many other markets, ABS is now mandatory; a Bosch "Nine +" ABS organisation stands ready to aid out in extreme situations. (It goes beyond what'southward required, with a rear-bike elevator mitigation system, too.)
The inline triple — a motor that was developed back when Harley-Davidson briefly owned MV from 2008-10 — has been refined since it starting time appeared in 675 cc form for the 2012 model year. Even now, half-dozen years on, the simply change to the basic castings is revision to the front engine mountain, assuasive the stressed-fellow member motor to contribute more than torsional stiffness to the frame.
It'due south a densely packaged, narrow motor; there'due south non enough meat in the cylinder walls or infinite between the cylinders to bore it out, so the increase in displacement to 800 cc came from a revised crank with a longer stroke.
Since they stroked it, it is no surprise that the standard Brutale, which makes about 100 horsepower, has a prissy apartment torque curve. The RR model, notwithstanding, makes twoscore percent more than ability, thanks to revised cams and different throttle bodies with twin injectors. Over again, as y'all'd look, that results in a steeper and more aggressive-looking dyno chart.
For 2018, the 800 RR had to meet Euro 4 regulations, which are far stricter both in terms of exhaust emissions and audio. Brian Gillen told us that MV went to great lengths to place and minimize mechanical noise. For example, the cylinder heads now have a new commodities which serves only as a harmonic damper. Past cutting mechanical noise by 1.5 dB, MV was able to let the exhaust breathe that much more freely.
Many of the detail improvements — and some of the near impressive aspects of the new RR — chronicle to the ride-by-wire organisation, ECU, and traction control. Equally you'd now wait, you can toggle between rain, normal and sport riding modes, simply the MV system likewise offers a "custom" setting, assuasive users to tweak things like the amount of engine braking and maximum allowable torque to suit their own taste and riding manner. The traction control system has viii presets. Even the throttle render spring pressure was tweaked after customers institute that the earlier ride-by-wire throttle was as well like shooting fish in a barrel to accidentally jiggle on bumpy roads.
Some other sugariness user-interface feature is a standard-equipment quick-shifter that MV calls "EAS ii.0." It momentarily cuts the throttle for almost seamless upshifts, every bit well equally auto-blipping the throttle for downshifts (although that characteristic is only available above thirty kilometers an hr.)
Riding the MV Agusta Brutale 800 RR
Sitting on the bike, the first thing I noticed was that the seat was basically a thinly upholstered board. That's not necessarily bad on a bicycle that you might want to move around on, so you lot can hang off. The seat height is adequately loftier and the edges of the seat created a pressure level indicate on my leg adductors as I merely sat there with my feet on the ground.
Luckily, after a week that began with snowfall and freezing temperatures and ended with cold, heavy rain, our ride solar day dawned clear. All the same, the ride began on brand-new Pirelli Diablo Rosso III tires on common cold cobblestone that was occasionally damp, at ambience temperatures in the 40s (Fahrenheit).
So, caution was definitely in order. Non that we were cautious. It was simply in order.
I wasn't even off the factory holding before I realized that MV wasn't kidding when they said the bike was easy to turn. One of the choices Harley-Davidson (!) made when it began developing the triple platform was to make a counter-rotating crankshaft. That and very light cast wheels (they weigh about the same as forged aluminum hoops) consequence in minimal gyro consequence.
The first time I crossed a manhole encompass that had sunk a couple of inches, I realized that the stock break settings were a chip too stiff for a lightweight like me, but that is presumably easy to dial downwards. Other than that, the Brutale was quite comfy — especially for a bike with no windscreen. The footpegs immune me to ride without fear of deep-vein thrombosis. My only real ergonomic critique is, the lower part of the fuel tank, where I sometimes like to utilise leg pressure, had some bumps and shapes to it that distracted me.
The mirrors were functional, in spite of a detectable (not objectionable) vibration. Unfortunately, the tach was so hard for me to read at a glance that I cannot tell you lot where, in the rev range, it occurs. MV uses the same dash with a linear tach on other models. The tach's a sort of bar graph that extends about 3,000 rpm past the point where the Brutale's rev limiter kicks in.
Although I can't say I ever felt the traction control or ABS kicking in, I did trigger the rev limiter a few times. The standard Brutale is torquey and happy at depression revs, simply the RR cries out for more revs — that's where it feels all-time and sounds fantastic.
After what felt like hours in heavy traffic and a frustrating photo session on steep, slipping-the-clutch-in-first hairpin turns, the dominicus had finally warmed the asphalt, and later lunch we came upon some fast, flowing sections that were relatively free of traffic.
That helped clarify a few things: Start, although I suppose that present, an 800 cc triple is nominally a middleweight, the RR makes very, very proficient power. Second, the gearbox on the new bike has been tweaked. (If I heard right, the undercuts are different though I admit to not knowing what the divergence is.) It would be a nice 'box even without the quickshifter. The quickshifter makes information technology fantastic, and it would be actually, really like shooting fish in a barrel for me to become hooked on the auto-bleep feature when downshifting. I found that I could trail restriction and downshift, fifty-fifty deep in corners, without upsetting the chassis.
Pushing the bike a fiddling harder on some adequately sketchy cobblestone — specially when I encountered a few very small crests when accelerating off corners — also made me appreciate the frame changes MV made for a picayune more stability, and the fact that the RR comes with a tidy little adaptable steering damper.
One thing that actually impressed me is that in a route that must've covered well over 100 miles, the fuel judge nonetheless showed a lot of fuel available when we got back to the manufacturing plant. Coming together Euro Four regulations costs manufacturers a lot of money in R&D, only one unintended consequence is that bikes that encounter the new rules go terrific fuel mileage.
At the end of the twenty-four hours — which is a phrase I'm using both literally and figuratively — every other tester I spoke to, from American, German language, and Japanese publications, offered some comment to the upshot that we'd left a huge well of performance untapped. The Brutale 800 RR cries out for a race track, where I have a feeling it will show to be a fun bike that'southward relatively easy to ride rapidly. (No one who'due south gonna buy this bike will worry about shredding a set of tires in a few hours.)
I'll write more soon well-nigh MV Agusta'due south "hyper-premium" brand strategy going forward. Giovanni Castiglioni was open when talking well-nigh the company's plans to solve inventory, quality control, and parts-availability problems. He knows those issues have hitting U.S. customers extra hard over the terminal couple of years, and he's pretty convincing when he says information technology's turned the corner.
For at present, I'll exit yous with this: MV tells me that in the United States the 2018 Brutale 800 RR will carry an MSRP of $16,698. The Triumph Street Triple RS, which leaps to listen as the nearly obvious and directly competitor, sells for thousands less. The MV makes significantly more ability, though the just fashion to know which one is better or faster would be to compare them back to back.
For what it's worth, the new Brutale RR is beautifully made, with impressive fit and end. I like its looks just don't love them, just as they said in Rome, "De gustibus non est disputandum" — in matters of taste, at that place can be no disputes; you have to decide for yourself. If it was priced competitively with the Triumph, I'd probably end this review right hither by noting in one case once more the very impressive motor, mated to a frame that responds to rider input almost perfectly. But…
Nit-picking or asking for your money's worth?
After listening to hours of talk nigh how MV is repositioning its make fifty-fifty further up-market place, and later riding the Brutale for a solar day in oft-frustrating but varied weather condition, I sat in the hotel bar, reviewing my notes and mulling the RR'due south nearly $17,000 sticker price. I realized I had a few niggling doubts.
Marzocchi and Sachs may well be capable of building top-quality break components; my but complaint was that preload settings were probably too heavy for me equally a rider. But, those are brands I associate with motorcycles built to a cost. The brakes were flawless in my feel, but wouldn't near hyper-premium customers prefer to have their Brembo calipers matched to a Brembo master cylinder?
MV is proud of the ABS and TC systems on the Brutale RR. Their functionality may indeed be comparable to systems based on an Inertial Measurement Unit; I certainly did non find whatsoever weaknesses in those systems in my 1 day on the bike. But I yet think the absence of an IMU is conspicuous at the price bespeak.
Last, but not least, I've got a feeling that MV's stylist, Adrian Morton, loves that tiny, tiny dashboard. But on a modernistic bike with myriad permutations of bulldoze modes and traction control, thin-motion picture transistor console (like the ane on the competing Triumph) would brand navigating those menus easier for users.
Do you concord with my nit-picking? Or, exercise you come across the Brutale RR as a mobile work of fine art with a class-leading motor?
Either way, it will exist an exclusive bike in the U.S. market, by definition. MV only expects to sell a few hundred bikes across its entire range and the whole country this year. Don't worry about seeing another guy on the same bike at Starbucks on Sunday morning.
Paradigm Gallery
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Source: https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/2018-mv-agusta-brutale-800rr-first-ride-motorcycle-review
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