Aprilia launched the Dorsoduro 900, second of its supermoto offering after the Dorsoduro 1200 in the Indian market yesterday. The bike has been introduced as a successor to the Dorsoduro 750. In India, the Dorsoduro 900 competes with another Italian, the Ducati Hypermotard 939. We take a look at how this civil war goes down.
Engine
The Dorsoduro uses an 896cc V-Twin engine that is a mated to a 6-speed gearbox that puts out a maximum power of 95.2bhp at 8750rpm and 90Nm of torque at 6500rpm. The Hypermotard 939 has a slight advantage over the Aprilia with its 937cc Testastretta L-Twin engine that produces 109.8bhp at 9000 rpm and 97.9Nm of torque at 7500rpm.
Features
Aprilia’s Dorsoduro 900 gets a three-way traction control system with a new ride-by-wire accelerator system and three riding modes- Sport, Touring and Rain, where the sport mode gives a more aggressive throttle response as compared to the touring and rain modes which work best for daily use and unfavourable road conditions respectively. Whereas on the Ducati, one gets the Ducati Safety Pack which includes ABS and the Ducati Traction Control (DTC) system along with 3 riding modes- Sport, Touring and Urban. Sport and Touring give full power output with sport mode, getting a more immediate throttle response. Urban mode cuts power down to 75bhp for easier riding.
The Dorsoduro comes with a 41mm inverted front fork by Kayaba and a side-mounted mono shock in the rear providing 160mm of travel on both sides while the Hypermotard gets upside down 43mm Kayaba front forks with 170 mm of travel and a Sachs rear shock with adjustable rebound damping providing 150 mm wheel travel. The bike also features a single-sided swing arm.
Fuel tank capacity on the Aprilia is 12 litres with a dry weight of 186kg and the Hypermotard 939 features a larger 16 litre fuel tank with a dry weight of 187 kg. Both motorcycles have a seat height of 870mm.
Price
The Aprilia Dorsoduro will be imported as completely built units (CBU) and is currently available at an introductory price of ₹12.5 lakh (ex-showroom Pune) which will be revised after June 30 to ₹13.84 lakh (ex-showroom Pune). The Hypermotard 939 retails at ₹11.25 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai)
