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| Piaggio X9 – city bike with a built-in lift |
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Dave Abrahams August 26 2003 at 06:46AM |
Get IOL on your mobile at m.iol.co.za |
The Italians do things differently. All the Japanese megascooters, from the Yamaha 250 Majestic up to the amazing Suzuki 650 Burgman, are intended for leisure, not commuting, and most are rather out of place in heavy traffic.
It starts first time, every time, even on a cold winter morning, without needing any form of "choke", which any fuel-injected vehicle should do anyway. The spritzer system is well damped and there's very little jerking on and off the throttle, even at low speeds. Piaggio claims a maximum speed of 160km/h. The factory publications are remarkably close –I got a genuine 161 with the motor revving well past its power peak at just over 7500 without stress. Certainly the X9 will cruise easily at 140 all day. The chassis is a neat trellis design in high-tensile steel tubing with side members alongside the motor. The front suspension has beefy 35mm conventional cartridge forks that are firmly sprung; there's very little dive under braking, despite the long 1530mm wheelbase, but the ride becomes harsh on a poor surface. The rear suspension is the same as on smaller scooters the world over; rather than having a separate swing-arm, the whole motor is pivoted and moves with the rear wheel. On rough surfaces the excess unsprung weight sometimes overwhelms the twin shocks' ability to cope and the X9 can be induced to do the hippy-hippy shake on big bumps.
The steering is much quicker at walking pace – in fact it's too quick and the bike is difficult to ride smoothly at traffic speeds. Nevertheless, the X9 is small and nimble compared to its Far Eastern competitors and once you're used to its delicate balance it handles the rush hour with no problems. The single rear disc is a lot more powerful than the fashionable pair up front; this is typical of most scooters, partly due to the inherent rearward weight bias of the genre and partly because most examples will be ridden by relatively unskilled riders. Even if the big front brakes are mostly for show, using both together will haul down the 189kg Piaggio in short order - in fact after a few days riding the X9 I was able a to out-brake riders on "conventional" bikes and surprise them into corners with the big scooter's quick and confident steering. Riding solo, that is; while the motor is well up to carrying a passenger, the unsophisticated rear suspension takes strain with two adults aboard. Even with the pre-load settings on the rear shocks set at maximum the main stand scrapes at even modest angles of lean. I soon learned to ride like a hooligan only when alone - then it wasn't a problem. The X9's body panels are tall and narrow, giving more than adequate protection for the rider while still being narrow enough to slip through traffic. The storage area under the seat is big, carpeted, lit by a courtesy light and a gas strut holds the plot open. It gets warm when the bike is running - don't put chocolate in there! There's also a cubby in the leg shield with the catches for the fuel cap and seat latch inside it; to open the seat or fuel tank, you must first open the cubby with the ignition key – which becomes annoying. The cubby also has a 12V plug. The beautifully upholstered seat, embroidered with the Piaggio logo, is very comfortable; in particular, the pillion seat is so broad and deeply padded that it can be a stretch for a smaller passenger to throw a leg over it. Once aboard, however, I heard no complaints about the luxury passenger accommodation with its practical grab handles. The X9 comes with an FM radio, operated by a neat box with refreshingly straightforward controls left of the switchgear, but no speakers. They're supplied but have to be velcro'd into your helmet. Piaggio offers helmets with a robust sound system built in; there are two co-ax jacks on the left of the footwell so both crew can to listen to the radio and speak to each other. I found the issue speaker set a little fiddly to use; beyond satisfying myself that it worked, I didn't bother with it. If the X9 were mine I'd install a pair of speakers in the gap between fascia and screen even though I would lose the intercom. The fascia is neat, but unexpectedly complex; apart from the four analog dials inside the fairing there's an LCD screen for the odometer, trip meter and clock, flanked a by a whole row of warning lights – I never did find out what some of them were for. There's a high-level tail light and the screen can be adjusted to three heights with a couple of hexagonal keys. Perhaps the most intriguing control of all, though, is the big yellow button next to the starter. Push that (with the ignition on) and there's a distinct whirring from somewhere under the footwell as a tiny hydraulic pump lifts the X9 on to its main-stand! It's the first scooter and only the second motorcycle I've seen with a power stand but the idea should be more widely used – the ladies loved it. And that, more than anything else, sums up the X9's persona; it's not a step-through Gold Wing or a single-speed tourer, it's a genuine scooter, designed for inner-city commuting – albeit a big and very sophisticated one with distinctly up-market features. As such it suffers the normal scooter problems of poor weight distribution and a somewhat primitive rear suspension but it'll cut through the Friday afternoon grand prix just as easily as a 125cc buzz bombs. Build quality is superb, which goes a long way towards justifying the premium price of Piaggio products, as well as the indefinable style that the Italians do so well. Click here to use IOL Motoring's repayments calculator. Specifications: Motor: Liquid-cooled four-stroke single. Capacity: 460cc. Bore x stroke: Unavailable. Valvegear: SOHC with four overhead valves per cylinder. Compression ratio: 10.5:1. Power: 29kW at 7250rpm. Torque: 40Nm at 5500rpm. Induction: Magneti Marelli electronic fuel-injection. Ignition: Electronic inductive. Starting: Electric. Clutch: Centrifugal automatic. Transmission: Continuously variable transmission by V-belt. Suspension: 35mm conventional cartridge forks, dual hydraulic shock absorbers adjustable for preload at rear. Brakes: Twin 260mm discs with single-piston floating callipers at front, 240mm disc with single-piston floating calliper at rear. Tyres: Front: 120/70-14 tubeless. Rear: 140/70 -14 tubeless. Wheelbase: 1530mm. Seat height: 775mm. Dry weight: 189kg. Fuel capacity: 15 litres. Price: R74 100 Click here to use IOL Motoring's repayments calculator.
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