Unedited part of KR report.
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And then there’s the Granpasso.
This vehicle up there with the BMW Meagamoto on the Big Dave ‘Most Desirable Motorcycles’ Shelf.
It’s quite a weird looking unit but it doesn’t care. Bulbous headlights in canisters on either side of a beak might not work on a lot of motorcycles, but the Mother of all Ohlins hanging off the back, Marzocchi upside down forks with 50mm stems and 190mm of wheel travel, the tasty Excel rims, serious bash plate, the Verlicchi high strength steel tubular trellis frame and the overall demeanor of the rest of the machine tell you that this is one is all about doing the business.
‘Enduro Veloce’ the factory calls it.
It tips the scales at 198kg dry and the detuned Bialbero CorsaCorta engine develops 86.5kw (118hp) @ 8,500rpm and 102 Nm (10.4 kg-m) of torque @ 6750 rpm. (How am I doing there, Ed?)
It gets along.
That monster Ohlins single shock, with separate tank is preload, spring height, rebound and compression adjustable. It offers 200mm wheel travel to the cast aluminium swingarm and it soaked up all of the test loop conditions admirably.
I left the Sarge on the seal and punted the Granpasso up some marble strewn side roads with great interest.
Even without properly tuning the three way adjustable front end it proved neat and tidy and rather easy to get the Metzler Tourance shod rear wheel lit up. The Front Tourance is a 110/80 ZR 19 and the rear is a 150/70 ZR 17 and they were sweet on the tarmac and ‘not-knobbies’ on the dirt roads.
I was just sweet on the bike to tell the truth. My only gripe was I found it pretty easy to stall after coming off the gas. Once aware it was OK if kept spooled up.
Apart from that everything worked exceptionally well. A dream to punt through the twisties, wheelies on demand, light, chuckable, very comfortable for a tall man (870mm saddle height) and with a full inventory of the names you’d want on any component wish list.
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Originally Posted by Hitcher
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