If there’s one scooter that should be able to bridge the gap and be responsible for converting hardened bikers into new scooter riders it has to be the Aprilia SRV 850. We’re talking about bike inspired styling, an engine lifted from the Aprilia Mana motorcycle, razor sharp handling, a top speed of around 120mph and a price that puts it firmly below the competition. Not that there is much competition for a scooter of this caliber.
The sharp eyed amongst you will realise that although the model itself is new we have seen most of it before, albeit badged as the Gilera GP800. Parent company, Piaggio have been busy depleting the Gilera line up recently in favour of the Aprilia brand. As such, the SRV 850 has been styled to resemble the Italian firms flagship superbike, the RSV4. Look at the scooter from the front and it’s got the same tri headlight arrangement, dummy vents, mudguard and a short sports screen. From certain angles you could easily mistake it for a sports bike and when you’ve ridden it you quickly realize that you’d be hard pressed to beat it on a half decent middleweight sports machine.
Engine
The 839.9cc 90º V-twin engine is taken from the successful Aprilia Mana but it’s been tweaked slightly to suit the scooter, it’s also lost the bikes option to select manual or auto gearshift and the three engine mapping options. Naturally the SRV 850 is fully automatic. The engine is fuel injected, liquid cooled, has a twin spark ignition and four valves per cylinder. It makes a claimed 76bhp @ 7750rpm and a shed load of all-important torque (56.3 ft-lbs @ 6000rpm to be precise). 95% of that maximum torque is available from just 3,500rpm which means it’s no slow coach and can get out of a turn faster than you can say ‘Was that really a scooter?’ The claimed acceleration is quite impressive on paper at 0-100kmh in 5.7 seconds, even more impressive when you’re riding it…
Chassis
It’s not much use having a powerful engine if it’s bolted onto a jelly like structure, thankfully Aprilias racing background means they know a thing or two about chassis design. The SRV uses a stiff double cradle frame, with plenty of reinforcement to keep it rigid and provide bike like handling characteristics. As such the SRV will lean to 45º and turn very quickly, whilst remaining very stable. The swinging arm is bike like and crafted from aluminium, final drive is by chain and the rear monoshock is mounted laterally in a horizontal position, it’s preload adjustable to seven positions. To finish things off the front forks have beefy 41mm stanchions and have been set up to suit the scooters handling characteristics. The alloy wheels are 16” front, 15” rear with a 120-70 and 160-60 section Pirelli at each end. Brembo Gold Series dual piston calipers and a pair of 300mm front discs take care of braking, the rear uses a 280mm disc with twin piston caliper. There’s also a parking brake, operated by lever on the right hand side of the fairing.
Tuscany
It’s 19 degrees, we’re in the Grosseto region of Tuscany and we’ve got a lorry load of brand new black and white SRV 850′s glinting in the early morning sunshine.
Sitting astride the impressive looking machine and lifting it off the side stand you are quickly reminded that this is still a big scooter, it weighs 249kg, dry (the Mana is 181kg). Thankfully the large dual seat is relatively low at 740mm, which makes it manageable, it also has an adjustable backrest for the rider and there’s enough room beneath it to stow a full faced helmet (unless you have a large head). Prod the starter and the 90º V-twin rumbles into life, the characteristic twin cylinder sound emerges from the dual stacked exhaust which exits from the left hand side, there’s an Arrow exhaust and loads of other goodies in the official accessory catalogue if you want to personalize it. Twist the throttle with the brakes on and the rear squats under the load, it’s evident that there’s plenty of power on tap and we were itching to exploit it.
Our collection of UK and foreign journalists quickly head off into the beautiful countryside, a procession of 15 or so fine looking examples of what is the world’s most powerful production scooter. The pace is steady to begin with as we follow our guide, who bizarrely is on board a Piaggio Beverly 350 Sport Touring. We’re all on faster scooters and want to pick up the pace but once we got up into the mountains the tight and twisty roads meant we could use only a fraction of the power at our disposal, the Beverly was there to keep us out of trouble. This gave us a couple of hours to really test the handling and it is almost as sharp as any sports bike, the way the scooter effortlessly changes direction with lightning speed is astounding. It can hold a very tight line, even whilst hitting broken tarmac mid corner. The suspension is superb, it never got out of shape and you could feel exactly what it was doing beneath you, perhaps an extra click on the rear preload would have soothed some of the mountain bumps but we weren’t planning to stop and get the tool kit out.
Usually Aprilia launch their bikes with a top of the range ‘Factory’ option before releasing a cheaper basic model but with the SRV they’ve chosen to keep the scooter as simple (and as competitive on price) as possible so there’s no traction control (despite the Aprilia ASR technology being used on the Beverly), ABS or linked brakes, this is just an out and out sports scooter for the kind of rider who likes to be in control. The brakes themselves are fantastic (no fade during hours of endless abuse) and the levers are span adjustable to four positions. As you’d expect from Brembo, they’re perfect for the job and they’ll get the superb Pirelli Diablo Scooter tyres squirming beneath you if you’re too ham fisted with the levers. I found myself using engine braking quite a lot and trail braking with the rear into corners. Talking of corners I’ve never ridden a road with as many as we did during the launch, the perfect environment to test a sports scooters handling capabilities to the limit. The huge dollop of torque meant that it was possible to get the rear tyre to spin up if you were heavy handed with the throttle, that’s thanks to a combination of power and the shiny Italian roads, rather than any weakness in the excellent Pirelli Diablo Scooter tyres. The grip would diminish (if you tried hard) in a predictable and controllable way and became quite addictive during our 130 miles in the saddle; I was hunting for loose gravel and dusty parts of the road. I imagine you’d soon learn to respect it in the wet back home and traction control will be quite a welcome addition to the model, unsurprisingly it is on it’s way.
I feel the need
Later in the afternoon we were let off the leash and four of us headed off to try and find somewhere to test the speed of the beast. It took us a while but eventually we managed to find a quiet area with a decent stretch of tarmac. The engine delivers it’s power in a very linear way, it pulls from very low revs and is strong throughout the rev range. It’ll power out of corners very quickly and effortlessly and will be hitting three figures within seconds. We didn’t have space to test the ‘proper’ top speed but rolling on the throttle from a cruising speed of 60mph saw me leaving the other riders for dust, the Aprilia accelerates like a bike but there’s no wasting time with gear changes, you simply twist and disappear, rather than twist and go. The scooters speedo has a white outer ring in kmh and a smaller red inner ring in MPH which is barely legible but the dash was soon showing over 200kmh but rather than worrying about clock speeds I used the GPS to record a true fastest speed before backing off, it was just over 110mph. The scooter still had more to come though when I had to close the throttle. Even at three figure speeds the SRV remained very stable and the small sports screen worked well to deflect the windblast.
If you’re a biker and you’re sitting on the fence, scared of what your mates might think if you buy a scooter, forget any preconceived ideas you may have. This scooter will do everything a bike can do (apart from 180mph) and it’s also practical and comfortable. You’ll do more miles on this in a year than you ever would on a bike, just because it’s so much fun. Give one a try, you won’t regret it. They’re available from your local Aprilia dealer now.
Price
Aprilia have been quite clever with pricing on the SRV 850, it comes in at £7799 which puts it almost a grand below it’s main rival, the Yamaha T-Max (£8699) and a massive £1596 less than the start price for the new BMW C600 Sport at £9,395. For your money you’re getting the fastest most powerful sports scooter in the world. You’re also getting the finest handling scooter I’ve ever ridden.
Tech Specs: Aprilia SRV 850
- Engine: 839.3cc, 90º V-twin, liquid cooled, fuel injected
- Power: 76bhp @ 7750rpm
- Brakes: Twin 300mm front discs, Brembo floating callipers
- Wheels: Front 120-70/16, rear 160-60-15
- Suspension: 41mm forks, rear monoshock (seven position preload)
- Seat Height: 780mm
- Weight: dry weight 249kg
- Dimensions: Length 2237mm, width 790, wheelbase 1593mm
- Tank Capacity: 18.5 litres
- Colours: White or black
- Price: £7799
- Contact: www.ukaprilia.com