When Yamaha debuted the MT-10 at EICMA last year, it was a polarizing machine and we weren’t quite sure what to make of it. An homage to the Dank Wheelies generation, the MT-10 is not your father’s FZ1.
We thought the borders to the United States had been fortified against the Yamaha MT-10, but recent filings with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) show that the now-called Yamaha FZ-10 will be a 2017 model in the USA.
The Ducati XDiavel is making impressions everywhere, most notably with the competition. First, we got word that BMW Motorrad was looking to build its own power cruiser, likely based off the company’s six-cylinder platform.
Now, it seems that Husqvarna wants in on the game, with the Swedish brand build its own tarmac monster off of the KTM 1290 Super Duke R platform. At least, that’s what these spy photos suggest to us.
The working title on this new machines for now seems to be the Husqvarna Vitpilen 1301, as it will likely fit into the on-road segment that Husqvarna has been carving out with bikes like the Vitpilen 401 and Vitpilen 701.
The Yamaha MT-10 was probably the big reveal of the 2015 EICMA show, with the 1,000cc streetfighter putting the two-wheeled establishment on notice with its radical design.
The kicker though to the MT-10’s debut however was the utter lack of technical specifications when Yamaha unwrapped the street bike. Thankfully, that’s now changed.
There is a tongue-in-cheek joke amongst moto-journalists when it comes to new MV Agusta models: that each new machine is “the best motorcycle yet” from the Italian brand. The unspoken punchline of course is that each new model has such an incredibly low bar to surpass, that it is a relatively easy to be the next “best” motorcycle in the lineup, and thus it’s easy to lead a bike review with such a hyperbolic statement.
That joke has been slowly fading away though, and it is becoming more of an honest reality, as MV Agusta’s motorcycle lineup has evolved from a family of luridly appealing motorcycles that unfortunately are also deeply flawed, to a brand of machine that can boast the competence to match its striking beauty.
Nothing better proves this point than MV Agusta’s three-cylinder platform, which was mired by half-baked electronics and fueling at its debut in 2013, and now survives as a supersport/middleweight platform that should be on every rider’s short-list of must-ride motorcycles.
It is this trend that sees MV Agusta now updating its 800cc platform for 2016 (the 675cc machines will see an update soon enough), notably with Euro4 emission controls in full-effect.
It seemed when MV Agusta debuted only a solitary machine at the 2015 EICMA show, the MV Agusta Brutale 800, with less power, more weight, and subtle design revision, that the Varese-based company had taken a step backwards from its forward progress. Now that we have had the opportunity to ride the machine in Málaga, Spain – we can see that is not the case.
The new Brutale 800 signals an elevation of MV Agusta, from a brand with a shiny veneer and little beneath the surface, to a motorcycle company that can not only tug on the heartstrings of our moto-lust, but can also pique our more reasonable senses into seeing the substance beyond the glossy paint and subtle lines.
Quite simply put, the 2016 MV Agusta Brutale 800 is the best machine to come from Varese.
It’s a busy time in the Asphalt & Rubber office, with the entire motorcycle industry deciding that January/February is the perfect time to host events. As such, we should have a flurry of reviews, interviews, and other articles from these events posting to the site over the next few weeks.
For me, this starts two weeks on the road, with my first top near Malaga, Spain for the 2016 MV Agusta Brutale 800 launch – the day’s route see us riding the new Brutale 800 near the Mediterranean Sea today, putting about 150km on the bike.
Things are already off to an interesting start, as we woke up to a sizable earthquake, whose epicenter was just on the other side of the sea, 11km off the coast of Morocco. Hopefully that’s not a bad omen for my fellow riders, though for me it felt like being back in California.
Enough of all that, the purpose of this post is to field questions about the 2016 MV Agusta Brutale 800 from A&R readers, which I can answer in the comments section. If I don’t know an answer, I will try to get a response from the MV Agusta personnel that are here with me in Spain.
You can follow our thoughts on the bike live via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also try searching for the hashtags: #Brutale800 for the thoughts of our colleagues as well.
I’m not a fan of the Monster line from Ducati. There, I said it. There is just something about the Monster models over the years that has failed to strike me as appealing, though I must say the latest crop of liquid-cooled Monsters has certainly been a step forward for me, visually.
I’m more of a fan of the Ducati Streetfigther lineup, and I still hope that Ducati has a new Streetfighter design somewhere on its design boards. Ideally, such a machine would have a Superquadro engine at its heart, and accordingly make big horsepower numbers that rip our eyeballs from our sockets.
The fate of the Streetfighter line remains to be seen though, and with each passing model year I expect to see the Streetfighter 848 finally leave the Italian company’s lineup. It would seem the Streetfighter is kaput as of the 2016 model year. -JB
As such, the Monster line could be Ducati’s only naked bike model, any year now. So, if time is really against us, and if the Monster really is to be the only naked bike from Ducati, I hope the future iterations take a lesson from this concept.
The Energica Eva is debuting again at the EICMA show, after first appearing at last year’s EICMA show in a semi-finished state. We were very impressed with Energica’s superbike, the Ego, and have been looking forward to the Italian company’s sequel, the Energica Eva.
The electric streetfighter first debuted with the same 136hp PMAC motor, but Energica has changed this up so the unit now makes 95hp. That is a noticeable power difference, but street riders will be happy to hear that peak torque is still very potent, at 125 lbs•ft.
The Bimota range has a long history of Ducati-powered machines, as the Italian brand has been used the most out of all the motorcycle manufacturers to power Bimota’s street and race bikes.
The Bimota Impeto adds another Ducati-powered model to the slew of others, but it differentiates itself as the only 162hp streetfighter in the lineup. If the Impeto looks familiar to the Bimota DB8, there’s good reason, as the two bikes share the Ducati Diavel’s Testastretta 11° DS engine.
As such, the chromoly steel chassis share a number of components, leaving most of the differences down to styling choices between the two liquid-cooled models. Our personal favorites are the exhaust and seat, which mirror each other with a rising flair.
I recently was pleased to get the chance to ride the KTM 1290 Super Duke R – machine that truly lives up to the name “The Beast”, yet shows enough comfort to be a potent touring machine, if you could mount bags and a windscreen to it.
That thought is exactly what drove KTM with its latest model, the KTM 1290 Super Duke GT, which takes the 173hp streetfighter, and gives its bags, more fairing, and a windshield — all for 502 lbs, ready to ride.
Unless the Austrian massively botched this relatively easy task, this could mean that the KTM 1290 Super Duke GT is the best sport-tourer on the market.
For the 2016 model year, the MV Agusta Brutale 800 gets an obvious makeover, with changes coming to the tail section, fuel tank, exhaust, taillight, and LED headlight.
What is less obvious though, are the effects of having to be Euro4 emissions compliant, which drop the Brutale 800’s peak power from 125hp to 116hp, though there is an increase in peak torque, from 59 lbs•ft to 61 lbs•ft.
Perhaps a model whose debut is obvious to us now, hindsight always being 20/20, Yamaha has just dropped the 2016 Yamaha MT-10 on us at this year’s EICMA show.
The Yamaha MT-10 helps round out Yamaha’s MT brand, with affordable and edgy models available from 125cc all the way up to now 1,000cc.
Without even riding the Yamaha MT-10 we are fairly certain that this street bike, with its Yamaha YZF-R1 race track DNA, is a hoon to ride with its over-abundance of personality – it would have to, with a face like that.