First ride: Moto Guzzi Audace

These days, in a bid to appeal to a wider audience, brands are adopting multiple personalities. BMW Motorrad was the pioneer of this movement. As its audience became increasingly endangered it had to drag itself out of the musty world of sensible touring and into one much younger and faster, and it had to do it without alienating the existing well-off sensible ones.

While BMW pulled it off very successfully with its entire brand image, other manufacturers have had to release the grip of their hard-and-fast core target rules in a bid to see more consumers coming into the fray and, ultimately, see more models going out the door.
And that’s exactly what Moto Guzzi has done. First testing the waters with its tough-looking all-black V7 Stone and now, with what is undoubtedly the brand’s boldest production bike to date, the Audace.

AUDACE IN BIKE SHOWROOM

The talented and celebrated head of Piaggio’s design centre, Miguel Galuzzi, sums it up perfectly: “We are understanding there might be two souls within the Guzzi brand."

Luckily for Guzzi, more than one soul doesn’t necessarily equate to more money. In the case of the Audace, it took its popular 1380cc California model, altered the ergonomics, sound, power delivery and looks, slotted it in next to the V7 Stone and muttered something about Guzzi’s dark side.

“We know that tradition within in the brand is strong, yet there’s another piece of the soul that could be mean and bad and black and whatever,” Galuzzi continued. If it’s sounding familiar, it’s because Yamaha went into the shadows recently with its Dark Side of Tokyo marketing and of course Harley-Davidson has its very own Dark Custom range, too.

The good news is though, there’s no denying the bike’s lineage. The Audace rides and feels like every other bike in the firm’s stable. Based on the California platform, it’s essentially a California Custom taken to the extreme. It's powered by that gloriously lumpy 1380cc V-twin in a slightly more aggressive state of tune; in fact the transversely mounted engine is the over-sized centrepiece of this deliberately pared-back motorcycle.

There’s more flexibility in the air-cooled engine than the specs might suggest, too. Still holding the mantle as Europe’s largest-capacity V-twin, it has a claimed power capability of 96hp at a high-ish 6500rpm and an all-important torque output of 121Nm at 3000rpm. It’s as happy to rev as it is to lope along — and that oh-so shaft-driven-Guzzi sideways snatch is only evident when the engine is spinning at or close-to idle speeds.

Being the latest iteration of the platform, the Audace employs Guzzi’s ride-by-wire throttle which gives it three-way selectable engine maps — Veloce, Turismo and Pioggia — and three associated levels of traction control (four, if you count the fact that TC can be switched off altogether).

Veloce, which is Italian for fast, gives you the most aggressive power delivery with the least amount of traction control. Turismo, is the middle-of-the-road touring variant, while Pioggia, which translates to rain, offers a softer throttle response, reduced peak power and the most intrusive traction control of the three. All three modes are clearly distinguishable in practice and ride-by-wire predictable and silky smooth. Modifications to the EFI mean the bike now meets Euro 4 emission standards, too.

With the English translation of Audace meaning bold, the things that differentiate the Audace from the Custom are, well, pretty much exactly that. It boasts shortened megaphone-style mufflers which are bolder in sound, shorter and slimmer carbon-fibre (really?!) guards, it’s got footpegs in place of footboards, what was once a relaxed-bend handlebar is now a flat and aggressive dragbar, it gets a touch more suspension travel, more ground clearance and anything that used to be chrome is now black. The changes also result in the Audace being the lightest in the 1380cc line-up, not that a bike tipping the scales at 300kg should ever be described as light.

Surprisingly for its size (and mine), it’s not a handful. For a machine that’s nudging a metre wide (920mm), I found the reach to the flat handlebar harder to live with than the overall size and weight of the bike, its relatively heavy steering not helping.

But this is a bike more about bold looks than bold handling. Even though it benefits from a bit of extra ground clearance, its 200-section 16-inch rear tyre is there for form over function and the 130-section 18-inch front looks the goods, but is more at home on open flowing roads than tight mountain passes.

The non-adjustable 45mm conventional fork performs better in real life than it does on paper, and likewise, I never asked anything of the preload and damping adjustable rear dual shocks that they couldn’t answer.

For a bike with such heft the braking package is superb. The ABS-equipped twin-disc Brembo affair up front matched the typical single twin-piston package at the rear made for some impressively positive stopping ability, important for one’s confidence on a 300kg-plus machine.

The Audace has plenty of other neat touches, too, like the removable pillion seat which makes a bigger difference to the looks of the bike than a 20cm-square pad really ought to, the alloy mags moonlighting as wire-spoked wheels look beaut and the good-looking and easy-to-read instruments are complemented by the firm’s clever, though somewhat gimmicky, data-logging and information giving smartphone app.

The app, which debuted on sister company’s Aprilia Caponord, gives real-time speed, power, torque, fuel consumption, acceleration, traction control and voltage readouts. It can remember where you parked your bike, it’ll guide you to the closest servo when you hit reserve and it’ll even record your lean angles on your spirited Sunday morning ride.

Moto Guzzi’s answer to Ducati’s Diavel and Yamaha’s VMAX, the Audace boasts bold looks, considerable capacity and enough electronics to give it the competency to be able to mix it with the best of the big-bore power cruiser market. And the likelihood of running into another one in your local strip is pretty slim, too.

If the Moto Guzzi California Custom was up your alley then you’re going to love the brand’s big, bold and all-black Audace.

CHASSIS AND RUNNING GEAR
Frame: Tubular steel
Front suspension: 45mm telescopic fork, non-adjustable
Rear suspension: Twin shocks, adjustable preload and damping
Front brakes: Twin 320mm disc with Brembo four-piston calipers, ABS
Rear brake: Single 282mm disc with Brembo twin-piston caliper, ABS
Tyres: 130/70R18 front, 200/60R16 rear

DIMENSIONS AND CAPACITIES
Claimed weight with all fluids except fuel: 299kg
Seat height: 740mm
Wheelbase: 1695mm
Fuel capacity: 20.5 litres

OTHER STUFF
Price: $23,500 rideaway
Colours: Black
Bike supplied by: John Sample Group, guzzi.com.au