Issue #268 Brutale Decision : MV Augusta Brutale
What to do when someone you know has their heart set on something they really shouldn’t have? That’s the dilemma Nancy Irwin faces when her friend returns from Europe gaga over an Italian.
I keep meeting people who want to ride, and I don’t mean a casual “want.” They really intend to go out and purchase a bike. This just happened again. My new friend Duane Mallaber said he was visiting his sister in Florida last winter where the only vehicle available to him was her motorcycle. He took it for a ride and has since craved a bike of his own. He owned a Harley when he was younger but now, at 50, he reckons it’s time to begin again.
Duane started looking at motorcycles in a whole new way, trying to find the style that worked for him: cruiser, sportbike, enduro, touring machine? While in Vienna over the summer he spotted something that stopped him hard in his tracks, something stripped and sleek like a rocket. He wasn’t sure what he had seen though, all he knew was that he wanted it. With that in mind, he emailed a pic to me, seeking my advice.
I wasn’t too sure either, but I thought it might be Italian. So I forwarded the photo to my friend in New York City, Cheryl Stewart, who is more savvy about the Italian and Japanese marques than I. As it turned out, the bike was an MV Agusta Brutale.
Duane is a man of discerning and exquisite taste, said Cheryl, adding that the Brutale is the object of fantasy for a rarified audience, although the “it” brand of the moment in New York is Ducati. The NYC Ducatisti include those who want a very sexy, very exciting toy, or merely a fashion statement.
Then there are others for whom a Ducati is just too common. For them, it’s the MVs. “The Brutale looks like it’s dripping with sex,” says Cheryl. “I was arrested by the sight of one at a big motorcycle show a few years ago. To the delight of the young men standing nearby, I couldn’t help but exclaim, ‘That bike looks so potent you could get pregnant just walking past it.’”
Cheryl went on to educate me about the bike. With 144 hp, it’s not the fastest on the market but it’s pretty darn fast for a naked street bike. It’s magically light, made with super high quality components, and comes with all those extra-special extra-pricey bits. But it stirred doubts in me that Duane was making the right choice. The Brutale seemed too much bike for a beginner or, in his case, a re-entry rider.
After commenting that she LOVES naked bikes such as the Brutale, the Ducati Monsters and the Triumph Speed Triple, Cheryl and I moved to discussing bikes that would be reasonable re-entry machines for a six-foot 10-inch man.
I had already recommended to him something in the 600cc category, a bike he could ride for a year or two before moving up. Cheryl suggested the Suzuki SV650, which is a pleasant, middle-of-the-road bike, and an excellent choice for a beginner. She specified the standard SV650, not the sportier SV650S. The older ones from 1999-2003 are prettier and have carburetors. Everyone loves the model. It’s peppy, inexpensive, easy to maintain and common, which is good for parts and service.
We discussed the Kawasaki ZRX, Versys and ER6, and then the 600 version of her Yamaha FZ1, which is the FZ6, though it has a quarter fairing. She added, “Naked bikes have sport-oriented engines, but they usually have an ergonomic body position. This is imperative to me because I’m a professional sculptor. Full-on sportbikes put your body in a position ideal for racing, not street riding. Your knees are bent double, and you’re practically laying on the gas tank with the full weight of your upper body pounding on your wrists, unless you’re racing. The effect is exacerbated when you’re a tall person.”
But with her contagious enthusiasm, Cheryl suggested Duane give it one year, not two, before moving up to the MV, knowing as I did that he had ridden a Harley before. And of course, someone else’s money is no object.
I sent Duane an email telling him that the bike he was lusting over was in fact Italian—not that it’s a bad thing to be Italian, but that it’s an expensive, high-end kind of thing.
His response was completely unexpected. Italian? No way! He wasn’t buying crap like that again! Turned out the “Harley-Davidson” that Duane once owned was one of those Italian Harley dirt bikes, the Aermacchi. I had a good laugh over that one. What a poor comparison! Clearly, I need to do some damage control. I told him the Brutale was akin to a Maserati, not an Aermacchi. And how did he ride his sister’s bike when his only experience was 35 years earlier on a small dirt bike? He put me straight on that score: his sister rides a 250 Honda Rebel.
Not discouraged, I advised Duane to post a picture of the Brutale on the door he uses most often, as a constant reminder every time he leaves the house, and start looking for promotional material to fondle. I thought I’d hunt brochures for him, and take a closer look myself. Unfortunately they don’t sell them in Canada, yet, and getting promotional material wasn’t easy.
I learned from MV Agusta USA brand manager Matt Stutzman that the company was on the verge of importing into Canada. The Castiglioni family owns the Cagiva Group and, once established, they sold Ducati and Husqvarna, and recently sold MV Agusta to Harley-Davidson—right before the recent economic changes. H-D transferred the ownership back to Cagiva, which stopped everything, including exports to Canada. But perhaps next year we’ll have MVs arresting pedestrians on our streets.
The brochure in my hand uses words like bewitched, aggression, ultimate racing and naked to describe the Brutale 1090 and its Italian engineering. The photos make me want to take one for a ride. It really does look bare bones sleek—and fast! Meanwhile, I got an email from BMW Toronto announcing it’s now the authorized retailer of Piaggio, Vespa, Aprilia and Moto Guzzi. MV Agusta would go nicely on that list, but I’m just guessing.
I do know one thing: life is short—too short not to ride a motorcycle. And there’s nothing like a bike that excites to draw the savings from your bank account.
