My "few hundred mile" 2019/2020 MV Agusta Dragster 800 RR review.

[SkH]

>> Initial impression topic is here <<

Bought a brand new highly leftover 2019 (for a steal) last friday.  Unfortunately due to rain and side effects of 2nd vaccine shot, didn't get to ride it again until today (the next friday).  Put on a good number of miles.

I guess I should stick to comparing the bike to the MT07.  But I may still compare it to the bikes I've previously owned or ridden which include:

MT07, 2015 R3, 2020 Triumph T100, 2015 Kawasaki Z1000 (my favorite bike),  MT09, and 2018 R6.

Well, if you were really interested, yes, riding it more thankfully gave me a much better impression.

I'll start with looks and build quality.  Bike is so damn gorgeous in person.  The body is so stubby and short, it looks great.  I don't know why, but I just love it.  Its roughly 12 inches shorter than the MT07, head to tail, yet the overall length tire to tire is roughly the same.  A thing I do not like is the mirrors which extend around 7 inches past the bar ends on either side (I admit though, great visibility) and it doesn't collapse or fold in at all lest you are inclined to adjust the mirrors everytime you try to move it backward to save you at most an inch.  It does though telescope out and extend another inch if you want to take up more horizontal space.   Most of the hard bits are all metal save for the solid plastic fuel tank (and other obvious things like the turn signals and headlight housing).  Yes, its plastic.  But thick solid one piece plastic with a heavy high gloss top coat, not a fairing cover like the MT07.  But as you can see in the pic below, there is a large tank hump to seat ratio which I'm a fan of on motorcycles.  Anyway, that aside guessing the solid one piece tank is a weight saving thing.  Speaking of weight, wet the bike comes in at around 415-420lbs which is on par with the MT09.  So about 20 lbs heavier than an MT07, with basically twice the horsepower (140)- which makes the power to weight ratio is excellent.  The bike is very easy to move around in the garage, it is so light.  I mention this because the Z1000 was about 490lbs and the T100 is like 500lbs and the worst bike to move around in the garage.

Although the exhaust is pretty, the sound on it is bad.  Very bad.  I prefer the stock MT07 sound (or lack thereof).  The great thing is, the stock exhaust is a "slip-on" whereas the large collector is part of the slip-on!!  Yes, that means, I can remove the main muffling collector box when I buy a new slip-on, and the actual slip-on will make a huge difference in sound.  Bad news is slip-ons are 1200-2300 bucks.  Oh well.

Feels.  The engine feel.  The engine feel is bad.  Its vibey.  This is the most vibey bike I've ever ridden.  In fact, its hilarious looking into the rearview mirrors as everything in it appears to be 2-3 duplicate images moving around like crazy . And the bike just feels weird because it feels like a very light bike with such heavy vibration.  If the bike felt heavy, then I guess I wouldn't mind, but its hard to describe.  But this is at very low RPMs it turns out.

The bike's characteristic is closer to a supersport than a naked bike.  The powerband is on the higher levels.  I guess my initial disappointment came from thinking the bike will be like all other sporty nakeds I've ridden.  Well, I was greatly mistaken.  This bike needs higher RPMs.  In fact, the engine feels horrible until around 6000-7000rpm (tops out at 16000 rpm- which tells you a lot EDIT: Redline is 13500).  At 7000rpm the power kicks in and the bike starts to feel very good and you start moving real fast.  Which also means you will be riding on lower gears on the city streets.  My cruising speed was 50mph at 3rd gear.  This is not a fuel efficient bike... my guess is I will be lucky if I can get 120 miles with a full tank.   At low speeds, like stop to start, there will be a lot of clutch control unless you can stand the violent shaking it does at 5mph.  It literally violently shakes at that low speeds, so yes, clutch control is required.  I'm still breaking it in (yes, I will do the regular style break-in due to it being an Italian bike) so I have not gotten over 9000rpm yet.  Soon as I hit the mileage, going to see how redlining the bike feels.

Braking is very good.  Suspension is very stiff.  And that hard as shet seat doesn't help the feeling of the stiff suspension.

Seat height is high.  despite it being listed at 32.70 inches, it feels basically like I'm riding a 2018 R6 (EDIT:>>> apparently I saw the seat height listing of last gen Dragster 800s.  Current gen Dragster 800s are 33.3 inches which explains a lot)  (for laughs, it should be noted I am 5'6" and weigh 120 lbs which means the seat doesn't dip at all).  Posture is aggressive, not as bad as a supersport, but still aggressive and my hands were getting numb after 45 min due to the weight on the hands (edit: I've come to realize my hands have gotten numb due to the insane vibration of the bike, not the weight on my hands).  But then, I'm fairly short so my shorter arms didn't help and made the posture more aggressive than it should be I guess.

Instrumentation, controls, feet controls, and technology.

I should reiterate that I hate ride by wire.  And this is no exception.  The throttle is bad.  Christ, after my first 3 bikes having cable throttles, then buying 2 new bikes with ride by wire (the other being my wife's Triump T100), the transition has been horrible and I'm still not used to it.  I hate it.   The brake and shifter pegs suck ass, they are so tiny and the foot peg is damn slippery.  It does have a quickshifter which I use only to upshift.  I prefer blip downshifting still though.  I've read a few dislikes for the display gauge.  I don't get the big deal though, only reason why I ever look at it is to glimpse a quick speed check, otherwise it seems fine.  Its funny it has a gear indicator but not fuel gauge.  ABS, traction control, riding mode, etc.  No launch control or anything exotic like that.

Bike quirks...

There is no oil sight glass.  It is old school dipstick under the filler cap.  Battery is placed under the fuel tank, so it requires an hour or so just to change the battery and it also means no jump starting (guess its time to learn how to bump start).  The bike came with its own battery tender due to the battery placement, and the connector is not the usual pigtail connector found in Asia or the Americas.  Obviously no space under the seat at all although you might be able to hide a thumb drive somewhere in there.  Despite having an LED ring around the headlight the headlight itself is a regular old bulb which I found funny (but the good news is it means I can actually ride the bike at night and see the road... a very big problem I had with the Z1000 is although it is a highly daytime visible LED headlight, it sucked ass at night, I had to ride with high beams on to be able to see anything). 

Overall the bike is growing on me for sure, and I think my initial problem was I was expecting a torquey naked like every single naked I've ridden thusfar.  This is a pure streetfighter.  As in... a supersport with fairings removed and handlebars swapped in.  And that's how it wants to be ridden apparently.

Pros/Cons.

Pros:  Beautiful AF.  With after market exhaust it should sound great (duh).  Quickshifter .  Italian bike if that kind of crap gives you a boner.  High RPM powerband if that is what you like.

Cons: Insane vibration, it is horrible.  High RPM powerband, low RPM feels so bad, this bike is terrible on the city streets, clutch control is tiring.  The mirrors take up way too much width.  It's an Italian bike .

Final word?  Not worth owning as your only bike.  The MT07 is far superior bike in the real world.  Dear god when I got on my MT07 afterwards, it was just so easy and sooooo good.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by SkH

[robbo10]

Thanks for all of that detail. I will stick with my 07! But I can still enjoy pictures of it knowing I will never buy one because I am a great fan of Adrian Morton's designs.  I presume he had nothing to do with the engineering.

[SkH]

I moved into a new home 3 years ago and just around that time, I stopped riding by myself just to ride.  The last 3 years, I've only rode with my wife.  I honestly don't know why I stopped (well, I suppose renovating the house the last 3 years was definitely a factor ).

So for this bike, I started riding again, listening to music, and just ride.  Did 45 min rides the past 2 days out of the city grid pattern and into open and winding stretches.  I'm starting to understand this bike more now.  And I can see why some people would say the bike has a lot of "character".  Plus it just feels good to be riding by myself again.

I cannot be fuel efficient and ride on low RPMs with this bike.  Not at all.  My initial disappointment with the engine was me riding the way I rode the MT07 or Z1000, thinking the power is down below.    With the MT07, I forget, someone remind me where the power just starts to take a nose-dive and feel horrible...  8 or 9k RPM?  Somewhere around there, right?  Years of riding this way have caused me to expect all naked bikes to be ridden that way.  Anyway, so with the 800 RR, I'm basically keeping the gears at 1-3 up to 65mph (105 kmh).  9k RPM on this bike feeeeels great.  I cannot wait to feel 11-16k range.  I'm shifting to 2nd at 40mph (65kmh), and earliest to 3rd is around 50 or so mph (90kmh), which you can see is not a fuel efficient range to be riding at but doing so these past 2 days, the engine is just starting to feel so great.  The vibration range is all under 6-7k rpm.  So anything lower than 6k is when the engine feels terribly vibey.  The bike is literally telling you to go faster or spin the engine faster.  So I'm always accelerating fast on this bike.  There is absolutely no leisurely speed on this one otherwise you will just hate the engine.

Oh yes, been using the quick-shifter exclusively now, including the autoblipping downshift.  This is dangerous, I'm going to get so spoiled and lazy.

The bike flicks so easily back and forth on the curves.  One thing I never liked about my Z1000 is how sluggish and heavy it was leaning the bike, such as going through S curves.  There was a lot of countersteer pushing going on.  Not so with this one.

And I really need to change the exhaust.  I was sort of wrong with the OEM exhaust sound, it does start to sound great around the same time the engine starts to feel great.  I just want to hear how it sounds after getting rid of the large collector in the exhaust unit.

This bike is not a good city bike. Not at all.  It is not a go-everywhere kind of bike.  The last 5 or 6 years, it didn't matter if I took the MT07 or Z1000 to wherever, they were essentially very similar where I can stay on low RPMs or twist harder for fun except the Z1000 was much heavier and faster/torquey.  But I now have to choose my weapon accordingly based on where I'm taking it.  If its just city riding or shopping or I have no clue where my wife and I are heading to, going to have to take the MT07.  If it is open road/scenic/winding road riding, I will take the 800 RR. 

EDIT>>> one last thought...

This would be a terrible bike to own if you have no other bike.  The only way I can possibly see anyone enjoying this bike fully is if they have something else much easier to ride.  In hindsight I realize how lucky I was to start on an MT07.  That bike literally can be your only bike ever for years and you can do no wrong.

 

ONE MONTH OWNERSHIP EDIT:

So I rode the bike for an hour and twenty minutes straight.  My right hand was in pain and numb.  Also riding exclusively in Sport mode, my reserve light came on after 86 miles on fresh tank.  That makes out MPG to roughly 28 miles per gallon.  Lmao.  Anyway, after filling up I put it back to Normal mode.  So... large engine with little horsepower = fuel efficient bike (T100).  Smaller engine with large horsepower = terrible fuel efficiency (Dragster).  Who would've thought?!  (I'm kidding, of course it is obvious).

Anyway, pain after 1 hour of riding and horrible gas mileage aside, I absolutely now LOVE this bike!  Obviously its not for everyone but for some reason this bike is the only one I own where I want to ride it.  As much as I loved the z1000 as what I considered my favorite bike, it was somewhat smooth and fun albeit lacking character.  This bike for some unknown, intangible, unexplainable reason, its just very special to ride.  Never had I owned a bike that I hated at first, and it started to grow on me, and a month later I absolutely love it.  I've incidentally gone the fastest so far on this bike.  Every other bike I've owned, my initial impression was basically the final impression.  What is going on with this bike?  I'm confused.  Is this the Italian bike special sauce that I've heard so much about?  Am I forever tainted with the desire and loyalty of Italian motorcycles?  Am I now that person?  Dammit... 

Edited July 11, 2021 by SkH

[SkH]

1 year of ownership update that no one asked for (but since this topic has a whole lot of views, I'll do it for the lurkers).

Ok, I haven't re-read this topic so I am not sure if I will be repeating anything.

I changed out the exhaust to a first party MV licensed exhaust (not sure how to phrase it... second party?  Basically like akra ti is to MT07).  Although it removed the large collector, the catalytic converter is still up in the mid-pipe, so it didn't fully open up the notes.  It is louder but also, the first 1-2 days, there was a flat spot at 4k rpm which completely bummed me out and I reached out to 2wdw and apparently they do not tune MV Agustas (LARGE SAD FACE EMOJI) because of how "rare" they are and it obviously requires its own software, BUT oddly enough, this flat spot went away by the 3rd day of riding.  So I was happy about that.  I could not get rid of the connected header/midpipe cat converter easily like I did my z1000 because it opens a whole bunch of MV Agusta specific can of worms- 2wdw doesn't tune, I would need to buy 1000 dollar+ software to tune myself, the cheaper version DIY software sadly changed company hands last year and their customer service now seems to be non-existent, dynojet doesn't make a module for it last I checked, I can instead buy a race set-up 1st party ECU which is 800+ bucks... etc.  Not in the mood to go through these avenues right now, I'll revisit that later because I am not entirely focused on all my motorcycles at the moment.

Changed out the clutch cover to a clear one because Italian bike and switched out the headlight to a full LED set up which is the same one used in the MV Agusta RVS1.

I had to buy its very own rear stand because of the single sided swing-arm.

This bike is very finicky.  It hates to idle in neutral on hot days (so I never put the bike in neutral lmao) where the engine just shuts off.  Apparently this happens to a good number of owners, they actually brought it in to dealerships to have it checked out, idle adjusted, but it still may or may not happen after that- after reading through all the responses, I opted to just deal with it and never put the bike in neutral.

It boils through its coolant so I am constantly topping off every 2 weeks.  Either the sensors for the gas are very unreliable or it sucks gas very inconsistently.  Its like there is a 10-15 mile discrepancy.  Some days the reserve kicks in at 98 miles, some days it kicks in at 82 miles.   And I always look inside and fill it up to the same spot.  I guess its just the way my right hand twists and the RPMs I ride.

Sadly to my dismay, the engine falls off greatly at 11500rpm.  I redlined 1st gear to 71mph, and once it hit 11500, the power just takes a nose-dive (going from 69 to 71 took some effort) (EDIT:  I tried another 1st gear redline, I am still having difficulty getting the rev limiter to kick in but got the bike to 77mph this time, so if the speedo is off, at least for sure you can get the bike to 70mph on 1st).  So this bike apparently is detuned from the F3 or Superveloce.  I don't even want to feel how badly the engine feels at low RPMs on those two bikes.  Sweet spot of power is 9-10k.

My right hand still goes numb after about 20 minutes of riding (still the only bike I own that causes this).  I did put on puppy grips or whatever they call it, it barely helped, so I cut them off after 2 months of use.  Nowadays at stop lights, I just lower my right arm and do some hand flexing/exercises which helps alleviate some of the numbness.

Here are current pics.  Well, actually these were taken last year around july or aug, but I don't think I posted them here.  Maybe.

Edited June 20, 2022 by SkH

[shinyribs]

I was approached by a fella with a '15 or '16 Brutale to trade for my 07 when I had it up for sale. How do you turn down a "free" Brutale? Accept the trade, enjoy a Summer of MV Agusta, then resell it.

Then he mentioned that he had an 07, sold it to buy the MV but missed the 07. That made my mind up for me They are good looking bikes. I still probably should've rode it for a summer.