Честный обзор Aprilia Caponord 1200 - Multistrada со скидкой
I travel a lot on different adventure motorcycles and this is review of Aprilia Caponord 1200, a report from Mallorca. Aprilia had a 1000 cc Caponord in the early 2000s, but there is little similar to the 1200. This is not an evolution from 1000 cc, as is customary among competitors, and it also does not pull on rethinking classics like Super Tenere or Africa Twin. It is interesting to consider Caponord 1200 in the context of the time, especially since it has not been produced for 3 years. The model was released in 2013. At first there was a simple version with mechanical suspension and a Travel Pack with semi-active suspension, saddlebags and a center stand, but eventually base version was dropped, leaving only Travel Pack.
In 2015, Caponord 1200 Rally appeared with a 19" front wheel, spokes and a minor adventure bike-style body kit, which you can already buy aftermarket. Suspension unchanged. Let's go back to 2013 - again a dollar at 30 roubles and that's all [russian mem]. If you do not consider models playing in enduro, and concentrate on crossovers looking at sport side, have a long time there was a Ducati Multistrada 1200.
On a year earlier in 2012 came Crosstourer and Tiger Explorer, in the same 2013 appeared KTM 1190 Super Adventure, which already about enduro, but power up in a sporty way. Aprilia releases a motorcycle that loses to all competitors in terms of power and torque right from the start with a new engine, lags far behind its main competitor in terms of dynamics, while being heavier than Multistrada. Caponord in many ways literally copies Multistrada, even outwardly from some angles they can be confused. It seems that the chief engineer of Aprilia himself rode Multistrada and was so in love with it that he wanted to do exactly the same.
Copying is not always a bad thing, if the flaws are corrected and there is a movement forward - then a Lamborghini could be born. Here, copying is in the spirit - copy it, just so that it doesn't look much alike. Caponord even came in the same colors as Multistrada - red, white and gray. At the start, Caponord cost a quarter less than Multistrada 1200 of a similar configuration and was generally one of the most inexpensive in the class.
This is an interesting question - if a motorcycle is 25% worse than a competitor in all aspects, but costs 25% less - is it a bad bike or a top for that money? The same controversial question with Multistrada V2 or V-strom 1000. Moreover, this is when comparing the beginning of sales. Because Multistrada 1200 was first redesigned for Euro 4, widening the gap, and then in 2018 Multistrada 1260 appeared, when Caponord was still being produced - there the gap is far from 25%. From the point of view of a used motorcycle, it's a little easier. Firstly, in Russia on auto.ru there are no options for sale at all.
In Europe, at AutoScout24 - offers are 10 times less than 1200 Multistradas and formally at Caponords price by the same 25% cheaper, but in fact Multistrada, due to the abundance of options, can be bought for the same money. With the same price, Caponord has no chance at all, well, except that a person really wants to be approached and said, "I thought it was Ducati." A small preface. On my particular specimen, the brake is air-bled to the same level as drums from 80s. It's a crime to scoff at a good Brembo. Due to inadequate brakes,
I was riding very slowly, where I could twist - there are many cyclists riding in Mallorca in the mountains, I just won't have time to brake. This is not a problem of the model, here in front there are lovely radial four-piston Brembo M4.32 calipers on 320 mm discs, with which I have ridden on many motorcycles - in fact, the Multistrada 1200S was equipped with sophisticated M50 brakes on 330 mm discs, but on the base Multistrada 1200 the same as Aprilia on the same discs - it's hard to find fault with them, but on my particular example of Caponord they run from 20% power with no predictability. In a normal situation, after the first braking, I would give the motorcycle away, but I will not find Caponord 1200 anywhere else, so I had to be patient. It is especially scary without brakes on slopes and when there were areas with gravel. Keep in mind that this is a
rented motorcycle on slicks tires without any protection and you will have to pay for every scratch. Except for various Indian weird bikes, I have not seen brakes in a worse state. Let's start with the engine. Ducati has a 90-degree V, and so does Aprilia. Volume differs by 1 cm - this is 8 hundredths of a percent. The cylinder diameters are the same,
the piston stroke of Aprilia is one tenth of a millimeter less. Compression ratio of 11.5: 1 for Ducati versus 12: 1 for Aprilia - with an error of 0.5 for both engines it is the same. Surprisingly, the layout of the engines is still noticeably different, this is not some kind of licensed production. There is a whole tv show, if you dig. The engine development for Aprilia was directed by Federico Martini.
Do you know who Federico was? Former Ducati engineer. After Ducati, he left for Bimota to design motorcycles with Ducati engines before moving on to Piaggio, which owns Aprilia and Moto Guzzi brands. The engine first appeared not on Caponord, before that it was put on Dorsoduro 1200 motard for 2 years, which, in turn, was released to squeeze a piece of the market from Ducati Hypermotard 1100. In any case, the engine was developed after Ducati, they presented theirs to the public as much in 2007. Do you know which other motorcycle was powered by the 1198cc Ducati engine? Bimota DB8. And the same Ducati engine was used in the Vyrus 987 C3 4V - at the time of release, the most powerful motorcycle in the world.
And Vyrus company was founded by Ascanio Rodorigo, who worked in Bimota and initially Vyrus was meant like a separate tuning studio Bimota, but quickly spun off. Even before any Caponord, there was insight into what this engine Aprilia wants to do for big touring models and its advantage over Ducati - it's lighter and cheaper. Because Bimota, besides Ducati, has dabbled in engines from other suppliers, including Piaggio, Bimota is very interested in a cheaper engine than Ducati. End of the first episode. Already on torque graph, the question arises - what was the point in producing a motorcycle with such an engine? The reality is even worse.
I would never have imagined that with the full open handle on a 1200 sport crossover, I would sometimes lack traction. Enough to quickly overtake someone or confidently pull at high speed, but the feeling of overwhelming power, like the competitors, does not appear. Fast, but not with a hill. The main problem of the engine for everyday operation is the lack of low revs. If Ducati developed its engine for superbikes, then Aprilia only for civilian bikes, they already had a sporty V4 1000 cc engine that was fine with everyone. And the changes to
the Ducati engine were designed to increase low revs traction. I don't know how it happened, but up to 3000 rpm, no one is at home at all, but even before 4000 rpm he coughs and shakes, as if with a covid. 40 km/h you go on the first exactly in the city traffic, and it shakes, as if it will stall. In second gear up to 45 km/h. As a result, you always try to keep rpm higher, which is not always possible in the flow, but up to 6000 is still empty. And, by the way, even in Sport mode of the engine, even in Touring.
It looks like a sport bike in the city, there are no hi-revs outside the city and it looks like a mid-sized bike. On slow twisty roads with narrow hairpins, where you need to completely reduce speed, it is sad, because you need to immediately twist the throttle and fiddle with the clutch, catching the moment when the thrust appears, while always re-gasifying. The engine can be fun on highways. If on the way it is not necessary to reduce speed below 40 km/h , I have no special complaints, except that I would like the Multistrada dynamics. It's just impossible to look
at an Aprilia that looks very similar and not imagine the dynamics of Multistrada. It's like the bike is in Rain mode all the time. Feels like the dynamics are more or less at the level of Africa Twin, only with cut out low-revs, i.e. not even the fastest 1000 cc. After closing the throttle while riding, when you ride or slow down, when you open the throttle at the moment of grasping, it always jerks, even if you open it slightly - the same twitching was on old Multistrada, by the way. To have some kind of smoothness, on Caponord you need to constantly work with the clutch - literally there is no time to remove your hand from the lever, it gets boring.
Vibrations are small Italian - somewhere in the area of old Multistradas. Do not strain, even if you ride from morning to night, but have a little. Quickshifter never appeared during the existence of the model.
The gearbox is not super clear, but you cannot find fault with excessive rigidity - just a slight indistinctness, but OK. I often came across the opinion that Caponord sounds better than all classmates, winning hearts. My example was equipped with a titanium-carbon SC Project muffler. There is db-killer, there is road certificate, but still there is a loud, harsh exhaust - I don't understand such a joke on a touring motorcycle. Judging by the sound from the other videos, there is a soft pleasant sound in stock. Maybe Caponord can win the hearts of big tank lovers? The gas cap, by the way, is the same as on Ducati, even the larva itself is also painted red.
The fuel level indicator did not work on my example - in the very first reviews of the motorcycle that I met, there was the same problem due to the design of the tank, where the float falls into a trap for many, and the fuel consumption indication is not provided at all. By the way, most reviews still say that the engine eats oil at 100 ml per 1000 km - this is not even a problem, just usual norm. There is trip time, average trip speed, maximum trip speed, but no consumption. And it is clear that they are so hiding.
I measured in the old fashioned way at gas stations and the distance traveled. In all cases, at gas stations, after counting, I got 7 l/100 km At the same time, I had nowhere to ride at full throttle, in most cases I rode in a sparing mode of about 70 km/h. Judging by the sites with user statistics, the average consumption is about the same - 6.5-7 l/100 km. Aprilia didn’t come across any official consumption, although it specially searched brochures available online.
In the first reviews, you can hear the epithets that Caponord 1200 has the largest tank of the kind of sports adventures, but in fact, with such a flow, the cruising range is 340 km at best. For a kind of sports adventure - not a sentence, but there is nothing to be proud of. For the very first version of Multistrada 1200, I have not seen any information on consumption. After the restyling of the engine, when the power increased to 160 hp, the official consumption of Multistrada 1200 was declared 4.9 liters per 100 km, which is quite realistic
in the conditions where I rode Caponord. Even with a 20 liter tank, Multistrada 1200 still has a greater range. The wheels are the same size with the same wheel widths and tire dimensions as Multistrada. As a reminder, Multistrada was the only bike in the 1200 class with 17" rims before and after Caponord. Rear mudguard similar to Multistrada. Only Ducati has a sexy one-side swingarm, while Caponord has an ordinary double-sided swingarm.
The suspension is a selling feature of a motorcycle that has been poked everywhere. In addition to being the first semi-active suspension for Aprilia, it is also the first suspension with automatic damping adjustment on motorcycles in general. It feels like the suspension is expensive even without brochures. Sachs.
The irony is that on the semi-active version of Multistrada 1200, which was presented in 2012, Sachs was installed, and at one time there was so much talk about how Ducati, together with Sachs, sawed their revolutionary Skyhook and how great they were, which did not prevent Sachs from going to the side ... Suspensions are not exactly the same. Although the fork travel and angle are identical, Ducati has thicker forks and secondly, the rear shock travels more. But the suspension is the only thing for which I won't scold Caponord at all - here they really tried to evolve. There was another version with manual adjustments at the start, which was quickly removed. Now we are talking only about the semi-active suspension. The implementation is interesting.
Usually a semi-active suspension - besides adjusting something while riding, is synonymous with changing mode with a slight movement of the hand. There is no usual setting of modes, you can only select preload level, but it works just fine in automatic mode - in the class it seems like the first automatic preload was at one time. In fact, nothing can be tuned in the suspension and this is a concept solution, not an economy.
The damping is cleverly implemented and the suspension automatically adjusts its mode according to different sensors, taking into account how the throttle stick turns, at what speed and in what gear the motorcycle is traveling, etc. She tries to catch not only the road conditions, but also the style of the pilot. It is not surprising that none of the competitors in the class supported the concept of complete automatism, because predictability of behavior is always better. In reality, it turns out something like the average setting of Multistrada - neither super soft nor super hard. And I have questions about
how this system, even purely in theory, should cope with typical problems of bad roads - where the asphalt is mostly flat and the pits are easily bypassed, but once every couple of minutes there is nowhere to go around and you fly into the pit. Or how the suspension can know if I slowed down before a sharp turn, when I need a tight suspension, or in front of bumps, where I need a loose suspension. In the city, worked very hard on speed bumps - probably precisely because the suspension does not have time to rebuild. Perhaps, if you scan the road with radar, you can unfold the suspension in front of the obstacle. Radars have already appeared, only the lazy is not designing neural networks - we are waiting for such a suspension in a couple of years, but Aprilia was running ahead of the locomotive.
If you have been riding at the factory settings all your life and are not fanatical about fine tuning for different conditions, you will rather like it. For this subclass and those years, the suspension is one of the best. It is moderately harsh without laxity, I had no complaints on serpentines, but the long fork travel is felt - on potholes there are no blows to the hands, like, for example, a Crosstourer or XR with a short fork, and ride a few hundred km on a Caponord on a bumpy road - quite comfortable.
It will, rather, throw up the ass on the bumps, but with this it is easier - you can get up. Really good suspension for its age, but with the classic mode setting it would be even better. Again, Aprilia is moderate on the saddle and for people of average height the last mile on the dirt road will be easy to ride. Interestingly, the instructions indicate a saddle height of 870 mm - I fixed myself in advance that the fit was above average. Then he got on a motorcycle and somehow it does not pull 870 mm - it turned out that this was an error in the manual, the site indicated a height of 840 mm, which is closer to the truth. Remember, Moto Guzzi also wrote nonsense in the technical map? Some kind of Italian trick.
On the other hand, Multistrada 1200 is lighter, in the lowest saddle position a little lower, you can normally select suspension mode and the suspension itself is more energy-intensive, i.e. Multistrada is theoretically better for off-road. The ground clearance is not indicated anywhere, I measured 17 cm carelessly - again, somewhere in Multistrada area. Enough for this class. You can ride onto curbs
and not worry too much about stones. I only once shuffled the bottom on the rocks where it was expected. A motorcycle is quite suitable to leave the asphalt and ride the last 10-20 km along a rocky road or dirt road - in fact, this is how most people use large adventures - for this it is not necessary to take something more passable. The only thing that brings a smile is that a bunch of wires and hoses are laid right along the bottom, which is strange for an adventurous event.
I will assume that at first they wanted to make engine protection, but at the last moment they changed their minds, leaving it as it is. However, I never expect thoughtfulness from Italians. Sometimes the motorcycle wanted to kill me, like a stereotypical Italian mistress. How can I put it like that? In general, from
time to time on a motorcycle, the engine speed rose quickly by itself. Not that in the extreme position of handlebar the cable was pulled - here, in fact, electronic throttle and just with a straight handlebar for no reason periodically the electronics began to turn speed, the motorcycle did not react to twitching of the wires or the throttle handle, it was treated only by restarting the router, i.e. motorcycle. So you go - the motorcycle rushes into the rock, you stop somewhere, restart it and go on. Once every couple of 2-3 hours
this happened, just in case, I always kept my fingers on the clutch, like a cowboy from an Italian western. Another from Italian is a socket. There is a USB socket immediately in stock. It would seem, what could go wrong? Only one small problem - USB is under the passenger seat, and there is not even a 12V socket in front. Weight-cap on the handlebar fell off on the road.
This is probably not the fault of the motorcycle and someone did not tighten the bolt. Nobody canceled the thread lock, but it's interesting that it happened with Aprilia. A motorcycle has a children's mileage of 50,000 km, and it, like a Soviet Lada, requires checking all threaded connections before leaving. The very hand protection itself is good in shape - it protects against wind and rain fully, flexible, it won't break your hands. Perhaps this is the only thing that has done better than Multistrada. Let me remind you that before V4, Multistrada was equipped with hand guards with integrated turn signals - and the shape was imperfect, and often broke during falls.
This is my first Aprilia and I was not very interested in the brand, here I looked at the remotes for the first time and experienced déjà vu. The fact is that there are Italian unified controls here. I have never riden an Aprilia, but I know these controls from MV Agusta and have ridden the Italian Energica electric motorcycle with the same controls. The main question I have for these remotes, regardless of Aprilia - it's easy to confuse Mode button on the left with a turn signal by touch. Both are pressed left-right and inward. You don't need to be a genius to
understand what the Mode button had to do with up and down movement, then it is immediately clear to the touch that you are pressing in the wrong direction. If riding the same motorcycle is not a problem, it gets used to it, but I am always interested in how solutions appear that can be improved after 2 minutes. By the way, the Mode button, despite the fact that it is signed by Mode, has nothing to do with engine modes - the Italians, sir. Here, the engine modes are changed by the starter button, which is customary for Italian brands and for some reason is not used by others, although it is a completely reasonable solution. And the starter button is made with a rocker - pressing the left side works like a kill switch, it's also convenient.
As, for example, on fresh Honda models, only with a horizontal arrangement. The second problem with these controls is the cruise control button under the right thumb. This is inconvenient in itself, while the logic of the cruise control has annoying little things - largely due to the implementation of the entire system with one button, and of little things, such as disabling the cruise control when accelerating over 30 km/h when overtaking. The emergency gang mode is activated by pressing the turn signal for 4 seconds.
You cannot say "thank you", but in other cases it performs the function. The saddle is the same as on Multistrada, the width of the main points of the handlebars-mirrors is also like Multistrada. The protruding fragments of the steel cage frame are also very similar to Multistrada. Moreover, when compared with Caponord 1000, 1200th version is more like Multistrada than 1000 cc daddy. The saddle on Multistrada also had red stitching, but not immediately. It is possible that Aprilia even appeared earlier - let's leave this question to fashion historians. In addition to the standard saddle
on Aprilia, you could also choose a gel saddle - it looks the same, but with an additional lettering. Ergonomics as a whole copies the concept of Multistrada, when the motorcycle envelops from all sides, only windscreen is narrow. Not bad, it's just weird. It doesn't hit the helmet, it just blows - many will even like it.
With my 188 cm at a speed of 110 km/h, if you go, for example, behind a van, the head dangles to the left, then to the right, if you bend down a little, the effect disappears. Behind the truck, head dangles even at 60 km/h - you seem to be standing in a traffic jam, and your head dives to the left and right. The windscreen from Multistrada was not slipped, on Ducati it, on the contrary, expands upward, plus by itself a little higher relative to the rider's seat. And on Multistrada, there was still a high touring windscreen available in Gran Turismo version, or as an accessory. Mallorca has exactly one fast highway, a stretch of 30 kilometers, not counting the bypass around Palma, where there is a lot of traffic.
I didn't need to go to the highway at all, it doesn't lead to anything good, but I went on purpose. Caponord is good on the highway - there are no depressing vibrations, as I said, you can ride from morning to night. Comfortable, there are enough dynamics. Aerodynamics is OK, if we remove the moment when the trucks start to bang head due to the shape of windscreen, and if you take into account that I rode with panniers. Panniers, by the way, though large, but not smart. Due to the design of the handle, the useful volume is eaten up and not every city backpack will fit, there may not be enough space in terms of height. On Multistrada, the handle is foldable
and does not eat up space in the case. Seat position on the top five, but all semi-sporty 1200s rivals are comfortable. Even the stock saddle is comfortable, but competitors have no problems with this either. If a person has a Caponord 1200 - the first motorcycle of its class, he will be foaming at the mouth to prove that Aprilia is super comfortable and powerful on highway. Well, yes, it's true, but it's not an advantage. After two days, I had such a thought - there were no situations in which I would not prefer not that competitors, but even some Versys 650, which in all cases would be more appropriate, only there would not be such increased comfort, which on this trip without highways and was not necessary.
I do not see any reason why not to buy a Multistrada 1200 or 1260, only if the price is much lower and then the argument is so-so, in this context you can safely look at 1000 cc motorcycles, which are not worse in terms of dynamics. We come back to the question again - if a motorcycle is 25% worse, but 25% cheaper - what is it? The market decided that it was a bad bike after all. Let's hope Caponord's lesson was learned and in the case of Tuareg Aprilia realized that you can't just copy someone else's bike, you also need to improve it. Let's wait for what they can do. Subscribe not to miss, and don't switch.
2021-11-04 20:27
