Speed Date – 2015 Aprilia Caponord 1200 | 5BikeChallenge

Name: Caponord 1200
Hometown: Just outside Venice
Height (seat): 840mm (33.1”)
Weight (dry): 228 kg (502 lbs)
Profile: Northern Italian athlete
Personality: Tall, muscular and
Favourite Music: Italian folk rock
Religion: Catholic
Hobbies: Hiking, mountain climbing, international travel

TRYING TO GET AWAY

Remember that first time you carefully planned to escape for an overnight adventure with your girlfriend or boyfriend? Maybe to a cottage or a just a hotel? How you eagerly anticipated getting there and then having some glorious alone-time to just…well…fool around? But then remember how best laid plans always go wrong and how you got stuck in traffic just trying to leave the city, and by the time you arrived you are both too tired and grumpy to have any “fun”?

Corsa Meccanica, the local Toronto Aprilia dealer, agreed to lend me their 2015 Aprilia Caponord for a couple of hours for a little, ahem, afternoon delight. I was intrigued by Aprilia’s entry in this now fast growing category of street-biased adventure-sport bikes (we really need to figure out an actual name for this category) which now includes the Kawasaki Versys 1000, the Ducati Multistrada and most recently the BMW S1000XR. I was also intrigued that neither I, nor any of my friends, had ever heard of the Aprilia Caponord.

CAPO...WHAT?

First things first: what the hell is a Caponord?

Brand names are a double-edged sword in that they can define an idea or an aspiration in the mind of the customer. On the other hand brand names can also have the potential to narrow assumptions about the personality of the product. Before you meet a girl named Iphigenia, you may form a mental image of her based on the look and feel of the name. Human brains have an innate obsession with trying to classify and make associations. If you are Greek, you may know that Iphigenia means “strong-born” and is the mythological daughter of King Agamemnon. To the rest of us, it the name looks awkward and so we may automatically pass the assumption of that awkwardness on to our image of the person. My unfair first impression of the Aprilia Caponord was an immediate association with word “capon” which means chicken.

Caponord is actually the Italian name for Nordkapp (or in English“North Cape”) in Norway, which is the most northern point on the European continent. So you begin to understand where the Aprilia branding team was going with their vision. The Caponord is, in fact, a bike I believe that you could easily ride from the Aprilia factory in Noale in northern Italy the entire 3,822 kms to Nordkapp (or Caponord) and be quite comfortable doing so. In fact, I found the Caponord to be a very capable all-round street machine with a real fire inside and an unabashedly aggressive disposition.

A FIRE INSIDE

That fire of course, is the result of a powerful 1190cc liquid-cooled V-twin engine that delivers 125 HP and 84.6 lb-ft of torque. Both the Multistrada and the S1000XR do claim a whomping 160 HP which may or may not be excessive for how most riders will use this bike. I can definitely say that I never once felt the Caponord was in any way underpowered, and riding in Sport mode I was at times barely able to hold her back. No one has ever accused the 110 HP R1200GS of being a sluggard.

For my test ride I had planned to mix a bit of street riding with some highway cruising to get a feel for how it handled in what I felt were its primary areas of strength. The dealership was not within close enough range for decent twisty roads, so on-ramp and off-ramps would have to suffice for corning tests. And I wanted to take it to a nice romantic spot so I could grab some photographic evidence of our time together.

What I hadn’t anticipated was the early summer construction nightmare that impeded at almost every leg of our route.

My full-time ride is an F650GS Twin which has served me very well as a downtowner. I was afraid the Caponord would feel heavy and awkward being 502 lbs dry compared to the 377 lbs of my little Bimmer. Fortunately this did not register at all in my experience. At low speed the bike felt very well balanced though with a smaller front wheel than I am used to it felt much quicker to turn. I think it just took my brain several minutes to remap the upright riding position with the sportier ride setup. Whether from a stoplight on city streets or at speed on the highway, fast acceleration on the Caponord was not a problem at all. It picked up with much enthusiasm in almost any gear and rev range, and sport mode made the bike extremely responsive without making the throttle feel twitchy...just the way I like it.

I'D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW HER BETTER

In the end we got the pictures, and along our short journey together I came to know the Caponord as a bike that is bright, fun and full of life. I also came to understand that she has a bit of a temper burning inside that athletic and muscular frame. And if you do end up getting stuck in endless traffic on a beautiful sunny summer afternoon, I could hardly imagine a more friendly and comfortable companion. Perhaps another day we can get find time to get away together again and this time take some more intimate roads and get to know each other a little better.

MSRP $15,499 USD ($15,995 CAN)
Fuel capacity: 6.3 gal. (24 l)
6-speed, 1197 cc engine

About the #5BikeChallenge

There is no one perfect bike. In order to serve every possible need and desire, I believe you need about five. So in a quest to discover my five perfect bikes, I am on a quest to gain the kind of knowledge and experience you can only get by putting yourself out there and riding. I know, tough job 😉 Through both short demo rides and longer term flings, I will diarize my journey and maybe help you make up your own list. Comments and suggestions are always most welcome!