What on earth happened to the ‘middleweight’ motorcycle class, eh? What bloated buffoon sat around a table, probably drinking an expensive, imported and sparkling (fizzy to us) water that decided to percolate from the lower hills of the Himalayas? You know how these boardroom meetings go, and the cost? He or she must now be shot at dawn!
Anyway, in my long gone younger years the most exciting class of all motorbikes for sale was the good ol’ 750. Sure, you could buy things like Kawasaki’s Z1 with its then enormous 901cc engine, but for the purists the 750 was the horse of choice. Beautiful machines were regularly spawned from all manufacturers like the Honda RC-30, Kawasaki ZX7-R, Yamaha OW-01 and R7, and of course the most memorable of all, the Suzuki GSX-R750. The Suzuki is sadly the only one left with us and they should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping motorcyclists happy for many decades and all the others should be awarded the Nob prize for not.
But today all we hear of is massive power in most cases and for most riders inaccessible, and huge engines, right? And while I’m in ‘dictator rant’ mode what’s with all this single digit garbage that’s attached to many new motorbike models of our era? I believe Ducati started this fiasco with the 916 and now we have all sorts of specific ‘cc’ engines. I mean, you don’t have a youth on a 125 saying, “ooo, and look at my 123.” Or, “do you like my 177, 238, 641, 837 or 1032?’ etc, etc. Thankfully, MV Agusta has stayed away from this numerical farce and just called their new middleweight the F3 800, or it could easily have been the F3 798, see what I mean?
But onto the new F3 800 because I’m sure you’re getting bored by now and heading for the kettle or bar fridge. Suzuki and now MV Agusta enforce a bike of this capacity (798cc) and it is the perfect bridge relating to performance and handling between the little ones (600) and big ones (1,000cc +), which makes sense. MV says the new three-cylinder F3 800 has the torque of a V-twin, which it doesn’t, and similar power of the big engines, which it doesn’t, but the chassis and handling of their 675 triple, which it does, so we’re nearly there.
Don’t get me wrong, a claimed 148hp from only 798cc is mighty impressive and in the right hands will certainly embarrass many a ‘big pilot’ around Kyalami for example. It’s easier to throw around and therefore less tiring, especially for a person like myself who still enjoys the original episodes of Star Trek. The F3 800 also weighs exactly the same as their race winning F3 675 with a dry weight of only 173kgs but, with 20hp more, the 800 is one nasty little superbike with a giant killing attitude, so job done on MV’s part by keeping the small capacity chassis dimensions.
One, or many, things the new F3 800 has that the old 750s and indeed the latest Suzuki GSX-R derivative doesn’t is a bag full of electronics that seems to be all the rage at the moment. I’m not the greatest fan of this, sometimes unnecessary, electronic wizardry but you get it by the Gig load on this MV 800 and if you like that kind of thing you’ll be in button jabbing heaven with this bike. Without going into it all too much I’ll just quickly run through the various functions and you can read about it all in more detail on MV’s website, so there. The MVICS (Motor & Vehicle Integrated Control System) gives eight levels of traction control, three map settings for rain, sport and something else I’ve forgotten, three or maybe four levels for torque output, throttle sensitivity and a quick shifter, and I think there’s more but I just turned everything off and/or set it to maximum to keep it ‘real’. But this massively complicated system did go into limp mode on a few occasions and then reset itself, which was a bit odd, probably easily rectified with Cayenne’s full MV workshop facility and support.
The screaming triple, DOHC, 12-valve, fuel-injected motor is without doubt one of the fastest revving engines I’ve come across. In neutral it will rip around to the rev-limiter at 13,500 in less than a second! On the road, with everything switched off, it will wheelie off the line and tear through the six speed ‘box on its way to the far side of 270km/h; fast enough for you? And most importantly, to me, it sounds fantastic, a proper race like noise bellows out from those three super-cool pipes until your blood pressure gets a severe jolt as the air-box induction symphony joins in with the Italian concerto. It is loud but more than pleasant to the dude on board.
I don’t really have to go into the handling because it’s predictably brilliant, sure-footed, nimble and accurate, which means perfect for a trackday or five. On the road though the 43mm Marzocchi forks and Sachs mono-shock are bit too hard on bumpy roads but being fully adjustable (I was too idle) they can be softened off, which I would do if you chose to use it on the road daily. Still they are high quality components to go with the rest of the bike and the F3 is, after all, primarily designed for track use.
One thing that cannot be softened off is the obscenely powerful Brembo monobloc M4 brakes. These are straight off the racetrack and it’s hard to believe that you could find anything better, unless it’s another and more expensive Brembo set-up of course. To me though the best thing of all about the new F3 800 is its stunning looks. I think this is currently the best-looking, most gorgeous superbike for sale, especially in this pearl white (black and red also available) and for the asking price of R159,900 it’s worth buying just to put in your lounge to look at, polish every day, and never take out. That won’t happen though because MV has reinvented the middleweight class and this Triple Threat will definitely threaten all of the ‘bigger’ bikes aimed at trackday adventures and justifiably so.
To buy this bike or any MV go to www.mvagusta.co.za
