Retro exotica: Michael Neeves rides the new MV Agusta Superveloce 800 | MCN Reviews

Welcome to MCN. Now MV Agustas have always been about style, speed and sound and this new Super Veloce 800 is all of those things and more. Now basically it is an F3 800 supersport bike in a posh frock but it also happens to be a mighty fine road-going sports bike. It's comfortable relatively, it's got loads of grunt and the noise is fantastic like it's been gargling shards of broken glass. At the heart of the Super Veloce 800 is a three-cylinder 800cc engine which makes 146bhp so it's not slow by any means but it's also more polished than ever. It's got the ride-by-wire system it always deserved so it's a lot smoother on the throttle, it's actually got a lot of grunt to make it usable on the road and you've got a full range of electronics, lean sensitive traction control, ABS, you've got wheelie control, up and down quick shifter, rider modes, even cruise control. So you've got all the bells and whistles in the electronics department and then all of that is housed in an F3 800 chassis which is the same as the supersport bike they race in World Supersport so steel trellis frame, you've got single-sided swing arm, Marzocchi fully adjustable forks and Sachs fully adjustable shock and Brembo brakes. You've also got Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsa 2 tyres which are kind of halfway between sports tyres and track day tyres so it's thoroughly modern in that respect and then you kind of walk into the retro part of the Super Veloce so styling wise it is styled to within an inch of its life as you'd expect from an MV nowadays and for the price it's autumn 2020 this is close to £18,000 so it's not cheap but you do get a lot of bike for your money you get all that tech all that performance and it's also beautifully finished the paint finishes are awesome and everywhere you look is beautiful detailing so the nose of the bike kind of replicates those old kind of dustbin fairings of the 1970s there's a lot of Agostini in this bike isn't there and it's so posh it's even got a tiara there's no visible fixings for the fairing so that looks really nice and neat you've got an old school thin seat unit the back end has got more than a hint of a Desmosedici MotoGP bike to it as well the kind of the stoner era so there's a real sort of mishmash of old v new here you've even got a leather tank strap back in the day the fuel tanks are held on by straps obviously it doesn't need it now but you've got this really nice little detail nice fuel cap detail bar end mirrors which actually work really really well so a lot of thought has gone into this bike a lot of design has gone into this bike question remains what's it like to ride so let's go and find out so if you like the style of the super velocity 800 and i'm not a fan and you've got deep enough pockets you're not going to be disappointed but what i like the most about this bike is that it is a sports bike beneath all this kind of neo retro clothing and it's a sports bike that is quite comfortable it's got loads of character loads of grunt loads of speed and it sounds amazing and i think very few sports bikes have got that combination because you've either got super bikes on the one hand which are big angry hard to ride beasts or you've got quite focused super sport bikes which are very uncomfortable but the super velocity is kind of somewhere in the middle and if i was to give it the biggest compliment it's kind of like a modern day gsxr 750 for me which is amazing because handles really really well one thing i'd say about the handling is for the money i'd want better suspension and i'd want better brakes for nearly 18 000 pounds you're looking at other bikes that have got electronic suspension and olins and wp suspension but there's nothing wrong with what you've got here i think you'll feel a little bit short changed and also regarding the suspension on standard settings the rear shock has got no damping in it so if you ride it slowly it's quite comfortable but as soon as you start to wind up the wick it starts bouncing around like zebedee on a night out and gets a little bit slappy fortunately you can adjust that out so we put a couple of turns of compression and a turn of rebound on the rear shock and it's completely cured it the ride quality is slightly harsher but not by much it's quite a sporty bike anyway so it's kind of acceptable but i can't remember the last time i ever adjusted the suspension on a standard bike especially one costing this much money so the biggest surprise for me on the super velocity is that this is one of the most satisfying and enjoyable mvs i've ridden in the ride by wire era really which goes back to 2012 mv have obviously poured a lot of time and research and money into making their ride by wire better and better and better and it really shows and it's made a really really enjoyable bike and mv are really on fire at the moment