Saturday, March 23, 2013

Purr of a Cat

Sometimes YouTube can be as dangerous as Craig's List.  I often scan available bikes on Ebay, just out of curiousity.  This time, I found an 800 Tiger, which is a bike I have imagined would be a good ride for me.  That got me to thinking about how it might sound, so I naturally Googled Tiger 800 sound and came up with this video.



Aftermarket LeoVince exhaust, plus the triple purrrr sure sounds nice to me.  I even like the crackle of the backfire on overrun.  It sounded so good to me that I ran around the internet trying to find really good sounding motorcycles to keep me away from the Tiger.  Ducati has nice sound tracks for their bikes, but they didn't quite do it for me.  V-twins can sound very nice, a bass thump in the tone.  Inline 4's have a nice, high frequency scream.  Ian Drysdale's V8 has a nasty combination of the V-twin and the inline 4.

Still, I like the purr and crack of this Tiger.  So here is the thought.  To save me from getting snared by the cat, send me internet accessible video or sound clips that might persuade me to stop thinking 3 cylinder.  I will add them to post for all to share.

Doug was good enough to share his favorite, an Aprilia 1000 V-2.  He couldn't find a good sound video of the Aprilia, but the Can-Am Spyder uses the same engine, so he offers this video as a sound concept.



Hey Doug, I like it, I get it.  It is a very different sound, more like a stacatto V-8 sound, where the Triumph is a higher pitch tone and more fluid.  Lots to like in each.

I did a little digging and found this video of a Caponord 1200 using what I think is a bigger version of the V-2.  The first seconds after the ad are a pass by shot.  Skip to 1:10 on the video for the on-board video.  So Doug,  is this what you had in mind?



This is a nice looking bike to me.  Much prettier face than the Multistrada.  It has nice electronic controls and I'll be it costs a pretty penny too.

Any other good suggestions?


4 comments:

  1. Jac, my vote for best sound still goes to the Aprilia V60 990cc engine with Remus or Aprilia carbon mufflers. One guy referred to is as "A rapid fire cannon shooting butter soaked cotton balls."

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  2. Doug,

    Great description!! Who wouldn't love that?

    I've heard a few Aprilia V-2s at MSTA events, but always from the outside and I think with stock mufflers. Have you ever run across an on-bike recording or video like the Tiger?

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  3. Jac, I went looking for a sound clip or video ala the Tiger video but couldn't find one for the Aprilia that really did the engine justice. There were lots of things I loved about my Caponord but the no. 1 thing was the sound coming out of the Remus Gran Prix pipes.

    It just occurred to me that the Can Am Spyder uses the same basic Rotax 990 that the Aprilia used so I check YouTube and found this:

    http://youtu.be/yAUdFa1ayC4

    Not quite as sexy, video sound quality seems a bit poor, but you get the idea.



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  4. Nice video on the Caponord 1200. It sounds much healthier as a 1200 with the stock pipes than the old 990cc did with stock pipes. I would imagine with some slip-on after market mufflers it might sound like a real beast, but a civilized one. Price speculations put it around $15k which seems fair for the high level of sophistication and performance the bike carries.

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