Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 12, 2013 Can you say aggressive? rounder than you might expect. "I made many long runs to the south of Italy on the Rivale in the past year," said Andrea Vespucci, one of the MV test riders responsible for cranking up what Castiglioni claims is 140,000 miles of test mileage on the new model. "You can cruise at 130km/h [80 mph] all day, and it's not tiring, so it makes a surprisingly good touring bike. But at those speeds the range is only 140km [87 miles] with the small fuel tank, so you have to stop quite often." Ducati obviously came to the same conclusion with the Hypermotard, hence the creation of the Hyperstrada weekend tourer. It'll be interesting to see if MV Agusta follows the same route with the Rivale. MV's engineers have finally responded to all the criticism of the cluttered dash on its other models, which while looking beautiful was quite impractical. Simply put, a quick glance didn't allow you to pick out the relevant data you were searching for. The all-new LCD dash fitted to the Rivale is a big improvement. It's miles more legible with the speed, tach, riding mode (there's a choice of four, with a Custom map you can tailor yourself), the now very visible gear selected readout, the TC setting (out of eight), and the coolant temperature all infinitely easier to pick out than before. And there's even a tiny clock that seems to have been squeezed in as an afterthought. But there's no fuel gauge, and this is asking for trouble on a bike with such a small gas tank – though after around 68 miles a DTE readout appears on the dash, and a warning light comes on at the bottom of the display. The only problem is that, like all the rest of that row of idiot lights, this is so dim that you most likely won't see it – just as it's all too easy to cover many miles with your turn signals flashing be- P69 cause you can't see the warning lights in bright sunshine. These need attention. The bar-end mirrors are both good looking and practical, with their minimalist presence in keeping with the stripped-out nature of the Rivale. But they also give excellent rear-view vision at the expense of being wider – but it's easy to fold them in when negotiating a tight passage. The way Morton has incorporated the sidelights and turn signals into the handguards is really neat. Ditto the rear fender/license plate mount with the turn signals on the bottom corners. This apparently meets all EU requirements, and is just one of the many clever elements in a design bristling with innovation. To begin with, the roads we were riding on were too damp to really test the Rivale's handling, but as the day wore on it finally dried up. And that's when I could start to revel in the great streetfighter qualities of the new MV's chassis package. Sitting that much further forward gives seemingly more direct steering, especially with the extra leverage from that wide handlebar. In fact, to calm everything down a little, MV's engineers have gone more conservative with the steering geometry, adding an extra half-degree of rake over anything else in its model range for the fully adjustable 43mm Marzocchi forks. They also added substantial extra trail (now 25º/104.5mm on the Rivale

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