insured

CP SAYS:
OK, I’ll come clean, I’m a biker really, always have
been, and hopefully always will be. Scoots that look
like bikes float my boat entirely. Even so the original
mutant ‘scootabike’ leaves me somewhat cold. It
doesn’t do a passable impersonation of either genre
to be convincing enough. It’s too heavy, not all up
weight, but the way it is distributed between the front
and rear ends, and what should be a great handling
machine – sadly isn’t. It is sprightly, but still half a
second down on the GTR. It is a looker, but in a
strangely dated way these days.
The ‘Aprilia Tuono’ graphics scheme of the latest
model helps a great deal in the cosmetics
department, but this isn’t backed up by anything too
spectacular in the performance one. The ride is
uncertain, with some strange habits once leant over,
this is exacerbated by the near perfect manners
exhibited by the Peugeot, CPI and Derbi trio, although
this aspect would probably have passed relatively
unnoticed if ridden on its own.
One thing that did stand out was the superb
relationship between the twist grip and the rear
wheel. The auto transmission is faultless in its
operation and much work has evidently gone into the
way it interacts with the engine. This yields a fast get
away, particularly when the scoot is already at
walking pace, like in the middle of traffic, enabling the
DNA to shoot off in complete safety.
The wide bars enable accurate manoeuvring at low
speed, providing there is enough room between the
mirrors and door handles of the rush hour traffic.
There is some instability found in the front end but
this can be attributed to the wrist-heavy riding
position that loads the bars and creates a twitchiness
at both low and high speeds.
NOVEMBER 05 57