VOL. 50 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 12, 2013
P63
THE
BEST ONE
YET?
A YEAR AFTER IT MADE NEWS AT EICMA, WE
TAKE A SPIN ON THE MV RIVALE 800
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MILAGRO
A
year ago the MV Augusta Rivale 800
broke cover at the
Milan Show and it made an
instant impression, romping
away with the Most Beautiful Bike in the Show award
after garnering 36 percent
of the 15,000 votes cast by
show visitors. Since show
goers weren't throwing a leg
over the bike, the award was
based solely on the bike's
high-impact styling, courtesy of MV's designer Adrian
Morton.
So what's it like to ride?
The chance to get up
close and personal with the
Rivale almost a year after its
debut, by riding it through
the south of France's
Provencal mountains on a
gorgeous sunny morning,
had some issues, though.
For after two days of torrential rain, the roads were still
damp – and with MV's reputation for flawed mapping
of its ride-by-wire throttle,
and irregular response of
its eight-stage TC system,
maybe these weren't the
ideal conditions to find out
if it lived up to expectations.
And yet…
The Rivale is powered by
the same 800cc version of
MV Agusta's three-cylinder
F3 engine as the macromotor versions of the Bru-
