Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

it into an apex, Superbike-style, as VB I, which is that it's presently The Boxer also feels great in a result, and it's certainly considerably the Boxer prefers. Yet the payoff isn't impossible to ride it in jeans, and succession of tight turns, because the more comfortable to ride than a the kind of instability which gets the even in leathers your right inside leg geometry is so well sorted that not Ducati 996, because you're not sit- bars flapping in your hands and the gets barbecued. That's thanks to a only does it change direction very ting so high up, even with the raised bike shaking around in a straight line, combination of the exhaust pipe quickly, it also doesn't sit up and rear ride height. with the raised rear ride height which close by it, and the frame tube which understeer straight ahead as so many The very fact that these compar- is surely a factor in sweetening up the you grip your leg against: this gets sportbikes still do when you misjudge isons can be made without in any handling this good: it stays planted in extremely hot from either the oil in your entry speed and grab an extra way becoming invidious to the a straight line, with the distinctive off- the lower frame casting it plugs into, handful of brake on the angle. And it Boxer is a measure of Henriette's beat lilt of the 72-degree V-twin or else the exhaust it sits in close feels slim and agile flicking from side achievement, in not only creating an all-new manufacturer from the engine breathing through the squirrel- proximity to. That needs fixing, to side through a succession of steep Iy MIG exhaust system providing because it makes the VB 1 uncomfort- mountain turns - just as a twin ground up, but in doing so with a potent-sounding background music able to ride along twisty roads or in should, in fact, and arguably even product which not only looks fantas- to what is at this stage merely ade- town, where the extremely noisy more so than an Aprilia Mille or cer- tic but also delivers an effective and quate trademark Voxan fan keeps cutting in tainly a Suzuki TL1000R. Yet it para- indjvidual degree of riding pleasure. to give an impression of a hovercraft doxically feels longer and more spa- At last, the French Superbike is rather than invigorating straight-line performance. That exhaust system leads to the only other complaint I have about the coming in to land. Call it character. cious than a Honda RC51 without born - can it be long before we see Well, maybe. being hard to change direction as a one on the racetrack? It's not often that Aprilia's astute management drops the ball, but this time company boss Ivano Beggio and his cohorts have ended up outsmarting themselves. How so? Because they've missed the chance that was handed them on a plate to invent a new kind of motorcycle in the modern, fuel-injected era - one that has undoubted commercial appeal, as well as distinctive personality. Instead, they've left it to Voxan to carve a new type of streetbike from the rough stone of history: a 1000cc V-twin street scrambler. A what? The street scrambler was born in the 1960s, and is a bike more notable for what it doesn't have than what it does. It doesn't have any bodywork - but nor does it have a fuel tank big enough to get you from Paris to Dakar with a single fill-up_ It doesn't have chunky dirt rubber and suspension with mile-long travel at either end - but nor do you need a stepladder to clamber aboard a bike that is lean and lanky, rather than tall and tight assed. It doesn't exactly have enduro ergonomics - but it's got a relaxed, rational riding stance and is great in traffic as well as on the rough stuff, thanks to the wide 'bars and slim build. But neither does it have pretensions at being a cafe racer - though it can stay with any sportbike through city streets or winding country roads. In short, it's a real-world road ride, and the wonder really is that nobody did before what Voxan has done now, in kickstarting production of its fuel-injected V-twin Scrambler 1000, the third of the company's trio of startup models. Not even Aprilia. Call it The Scrambler School of bike design...but isn't this just an enduro by another name? "No way," said Henriette. "The trailbike market is dead on its feet because customers want a simple, stripped-out everyday road bike that's fun as well as practical, conventional yet chic, but manufacturers won't give it to them. They don't want a refugee from the African desert that they'll never take off-road, and there's even less point in building a touring bike that masquerades as a street enduro. Just as bikes like the Suzuki Bandit and Triumph Speed Triple are a throwback to the naked roadsters of the 1970s and the uncluttered simplicity they represented, the Scrambler is a retum to the original source of the modem street enduro. A basic, clean-looking multi-purpose trailbike which is a modem expression of a late-'60s British twin built for the Arnerican mllrket, like a BSA Hornet or Triumph Tiger, allows the fundamental appeal of such bikes to become evident, without being burdened by too much bodywork, fuel capacity, styling or color graphics. Simple is sweet.· Because the Scrambler is light (418 pounds dry), slim and agile enough to take you anywhere you're set on going, along country roads, city streets, dirt trails or ton-up motorways especially with the long-travel (160mm at the forks, 155mrn at the rear) Paioli suspension and ultra-rational riding position - yet its 820mm seat height makes it easy to hop on and off, and for an average-sized rider to put both feet nat on the ground at traffic lights. The riding stance is great, with an adequately padded seat that doesn't however have much storage space beneath it - just enough for a U-Iock and the bike's documents - ideally located footrests with thick enough rubbers not to let any vibes from the 72-degree Vtwin motor intrude, space for the knees of a six-footer to nestle into the style-conscious flanks of the 3.7-gallon fuel tank, which are more hospitable for body parts than they look, and gracefully curved handlebars that are quite wide - so there's good leverage for tight tums in town or up a narrow mountain road - but pulled back just enough to deliver control without discomfort. Parked above the round headlight is a pair of extremely good-looking analog instruments with digital readouts incorporated in their lower sections, with chrome shrouds. The 19-inch front wheel gives light, quite precise steering via the narrow 2.50-inch rim, and there's pretty good grip in spite of the skinny width of the Michelin T66 dirt-bike tires (fitted with tubes since the Spanish-made alloy rims are of the conventional type) - enough to get the hero tabs on the footrests touching down if you really try. The Scrambler feels quite different to ride than a dirt bike - not so high off the ground, handlebars are a little lower and narrower, and the bike feels slightly more substantial, while still slim and agile - but it's also much less aggressive in feel than a Monster-style street rod. Taking equal credit for that is the ultra-nexible 72-degree V-twin engine, which has loads of character as well as lazy performance, even in the detuned form it's used here, with power dropped to 85 hp from the Cafe Racer's 108 hp, but a corresponding increase in torque and the width of the powerband. With a very progressive and quite light clutch action, it'll pull cleanly from as low as 2000 rpm in fifth or even sixth gear on part-throttle, and from 3000 revs wide open, without any uncertainty or transmission snatch, making this the ultimate relaxed ride, though the quite upright riding stance doesn't lend itself to parting the slipstream of a Me~cedes with your body as you make the pass stick. But the Scrambler isn't a bike for freeways, even though it's surprisingly adept at cruising them. A five-speed Scrambler would be a nicer bike, with the 18 x 44T overali gearing raised a couple of teeth to compensate - acceleration is pretty impressive as it is, and it surely wouldn't suffer unduly with slightly higher gearing. Sixth gear is really redundant on a shorthop streetrod like this. eN When you thumb the starter, the trademark lilt of the 72-degree motor immediately stamps this as a V-twin though it's not till the needle of the very legible tach hits the 7000 rpm mark that you start to feel some roughness from the engine through the seat and footrests, if not through the rubber-mounted handlebars. And it sounds cool. The altered mapping hasn't however delivered a snatchy pickup from a closed throttle as on some other bikes, which in turn makes riding the Scrambler along a dirt road no real trial - the decent off-road grip from the Michelin T66 trailbike ribber and quite compliant suspension, make this feasible, even though the Scrambler is designed as a go-anywhere tarmac model rather than a dirtbike: this is the limit of its off-road capability. While the Paioli forks are completely nonadjustable, the underslung rear shock has a 20-c1ick rebound adjustment knob, but spring preload can only be altered via a C-spanner in the toolkit, and then only after removing the bolted-on sumpguard. Ride quality is good over rough roads, though, and the softly-damped forks work okay most of the time, but do dive quite a lot under the hard braking which the downsized 296mm Nissin brakes prove surprisingly adept at delivering. Just as on the Triumph models the Voxan shares them with, these are gripped by two-piston calipers, and are pretty effective, without being grabby. Perhaps inevitably for the product of a young company still learning on the job, there are a few detail niggles on the preproduction Scrambler which could stand some attention, like the extremely noisy cooling fan which sounds like a hovercraft readying for takeoff, or the cheaplooking plastic dash containing the waming lights, or the poor-quality alloy castings for bolton parts like grab-handles and fork clamp, etc. Voxan says they plan to rectify all this on the final production versions, which they'll need to do on a bike costing $9400 in France (including an unlimited mileage three-year warranty), and available either in the test bike's black and silver, or in orange. Voxan has undoubtedly created a new type of bike which adds an extra dimension to practical motorcycling - the nearest thing to an ideal all-around everyday streetrod yet invented in the modem era, taking the classic BritBike idea of stylish practicality, and imbuing it with the performance and sophistication of today. You can play street squirrel, dirt demon, Captain Sensible or Joe Average on the Voxan Scrambler, depending which side of bed you got out of that morning, and where your riding mood takes you. Given that 90 percent of street enduros or tarmac dirt bikes never get their tires muddy - call it the Range Rover syndrome it surely makes sense to capitalize on their streetwise advantages to create a true tarmac allarounder that combines practicality with style, and makes you feel good every time you sling a leg over it. The Voxan Scrambler does just that. cue I _ n _ ..., so • SEPTEMBER 5, 2001 43

• Cover