Morbidelli T1002VX Review: The Revived Italian Brand's ADV Tested

If you’re old, like me, you’ll probably recall the Morbidelli brand being most famous for producing what is widely regarded as the ugliest bike ever, the ill-fated V8 - see below, but have a sick bag at the ready!

Thankfully, the styling team for that bike had nothing to do with the bike I’m here to ride today, the handsome-looking T10002V and the spoked-wheeled T10002VX. Aside from the wheels, there are no other changes to note, and while the cross-laced wheels make it look like some desert bashing explorer, this is very much more of an on-road adventure bike.

To find out how it performs, I headed to the Lancashire town of Chorley, home of MotoGB, which is the firm behind the Morbidelli marque here in the UK. We have around 120 miles of riding ahead of us and will be testing the bike purely riding on the road, with no dirt tracks and trails on the horizon.

What is the Morbidelli T10002VX all about

While it may sound as Italian as espresso and arancini, the new Morbidelli is very much a Chinese bike, with only the styling coming from its European homeland, thanks to a facility in Pesaro. Pleasingly, it’s also not one of these Chinese bikes that is a carbon copy of an existing Euro or Japanese model, and the frame, engine, and styling are all unique to the machine.

At its heart is a 997cc 80-degree V-twin which pumps out a claimed 88.5bhp at 7,750rpm and 65lb ft at 5,250rpm. Suspending the bike at both ends is quality kit from KYB, which boasts full adjustability and 183.8 mm of travel in the front and 77.4mm at the rear. Another tried and test brand supplies the stoppers for the bike, with J.Juan providing four-pot calipers that are governed by a Bosch six-axis IMU meaning corning ABS and traction control come as standard.

Up in the cockpit, the bike gains a handsome-looking TFT dash (with Bluetooth connectivity), a USB and 12-volt charging socket, heated grips and heated rider seat as standard. You also get an adjustable screen that can just about be done on the fly - if you’re quick and don’t mind riding non-handed! All in all, it’s a very well-appointed bike, with lots of tech and accessories added as standard, most of which would cost extra with many other manufacturers.

Price, colours and availability

As mentioned above, there are two versions of the bike available, although the only change is the wheels - wheel sizes are the same regardless of model. The T1002V is £7,999 and gets cast aluminium wheels, while the T10002VX is £8,199 and gets the neat cross-laced spoked wheels. Colour options are black or white, and bikes are available in Morbidelli dealerships now.

What’s it like to ride

As launch locations go, Chorely isn’t the most exotic I’ve visited, although we are a stone's throw from the beautiful Ribble Valley, so I’ll take the rough with the smooth. We gather at MotoGB, Morbidelli’s UK HQ, and are greeted by a fleet of the handsome-looking bikes ticking over in the crisp morning air. At a standstill, the bike’s got that unmistakable V-twin idle, although its 80-degree architecture (quite possibly unique to this engine) gives the bike an extra distinctive sound and character.

We have around 20 minutes before we ride, so I have a poke around the bike and try and spot some issues. I’m still poking and to be honest, I’m not really finding any. A few of the materials used are questionable (such as the thin plastic on the bash plate - really?), although on the whole, it looks nicely put together. Add on the aluminium luggage (only £499 for the lot, including racks) and you’ve got a very nicely specced bike with pretty much all the kit you’d need for a tour of almost any distance.

With the pre-ride briefing complete, we head off and straight onto the motorway to sample the bikes' cruising credentials. Getting to grips with the controls is easy, and unlike on a lot of East Asian bikes, the switchgear itself is nice and tactile, including the fitted-as-standard cruise control - not a certainty at this price point. I’ve got the screen on its lowest setting, but I’ll be changing that when we get to the first photo point, as the top of my head is just nudging the turbulent air.

One thing I am noticing is that the riding position is a little unorthodox. The bike’s claimed to have an 820mm seat, which I’d ordinarily be easily flat-foot on. This bike feels more like 840 to 850mm, and the stepover is quite wide, meaning I’m just on the tip of my boots when I come to a stop. The pegs are also quite high, meaning there is a bit of a bend in my knee that is okay at the moment, but could become tiresome over the course of a long riding day. Seat comfort feels okay so far, although I’ll need to take stock at the end of the ride to really advise on how comfortable it is.

What I can make an opinion on is the engine, which has a very soft and accommodating character. It’s magnified by the fuel injection, which is quite woolly, and a throttle that is extremely softly mapped, even in the sportiest riding mode. It can get a wriggle on when provoked, but you have to really work the motor and keep on top of the upshifts or you’ll run into the brick wall rev-limiter. 88bhp in an adventure bike isn’t a very ambitious figure, and with 265kg (wet with full luggage) to haul, the T1002VX is never going to be the fastest thing on the road. Fast it may not be, but the engine is undeniably full of character, and for a 1,000cc unit, it is incredibly unintimidating.

The easy-going nature continues with the rest of the riding experience, as, for such a chunky bike, it is very easy to ride - bar the lofty seat. The controls are light, and you even get a hydraulic clutch, which again, isn’t a certainty at this price point. Once you get up to speed, the weight of the bike melts away nicely, and you only really feel it when moving very slowly through traffic or when manually handling the bike. It changes direction nicely and feels extremely planted and surefooted in faster sweeping corners. The only point so far that I can feel the suspension being overpowered is when the going gets rough. If I push hard along bumpy sections of road, the suspension seems to lose a bit of composure, forcing me to back off a little. Keep it on fast sweeping (and smooth!) A-roads, though, and the bike really starts to feel at home, and that stability and planted feeling means can push hard with the only limiting factor being the grip provided by the Pirelli Scorpion Rally hoops. They’re about as good as an adventure tyre gets for this kind of bike, although they aren’t unflappable, and on a couple of occasions, I can feel the traction control chiming in on the exit of faster corners.

While we are on the subject of traction control, Morbidelli has, in my mind, made an error with how the system is set up, as you can’t switch it on or off the outside of the pre-defined riding modes. Rain mode obviously has high traction control, while sport has much less, but importantly, still has some traction control as a safety net. The only riding mode that doesn’t have any traction control intervention is the Off-Road mode, although if you flick it into that setting, you’ll also lose the ABS at both ends… Not ideal. If it’s a simple case of updating the firmware, I’d like to see Morbidelli change that, as I’d much rather not have the TC triggering on these grippy and bone-dry roads.

Unlike the traction control, the ABS isn’t so easily triggered, and the power from the J.Juan braking system is pretty good. Like the rest of the bike, the lever feel is very progressive and quite soft, but I’ve got no complaints about the power on hand. The rear brake is equally strong, and as somebody who uses the rear a lot when riding around town, I'm happy that it has a more direct feel when I stomp on the lever.

Opposite the rear brake, we find a gear lever which isn’t connected to a quickshifter. It’s rare to test a bike without a quickshifter fitted as standard, although it’s not really something I’m missing on the Morbidelli. The gearbox is nice and direct, meaning that clutchless shifts both up and down the box are a doddle. Connected to the gearbox is a slipper clutch, which does a decent enough job of keeping everything in order, and only on a couple of occasions can I hear a ‘chirp’ from the rear tyre when downshifting hard. One handy feature, especially if you do a lot of town riding, is a very light clutch lever, although I’m finding the bite point to be quite a long way out. It’s taken a couple of hours of riding to properly tune in to the lever for a clean getaway, but I’m getting on with it more now than at the start of the ride.

On the comfort front, I think Morbidelli has done a decent job. The seat is nicely padded and not too soft, and the bars and pegs are all fairly free from vibes aside from a slight buzz at very high revs. I still feel that, for a bike of this type, the pegs are a little high, although after a day of riding, my upper and lower body are free from any aches and pains. The weather protection works well too, as, when set to its tallest setting, the screen helps to create a nice little bubble for me to nestle in, and the handguards seem big enough to make a difference. Another feature that will be a big plus for year-round riders is the standard fitted heated seat and grips. I flicked these on in the morning to see how they performed and was astounded by how hot they got. In summer gloves the heated grips were almost too hot to bear, while the heated seat was equally as powerful, even when wearing my Richa Atlantic laminated Gore-Tex suit.

Verdict

It’s a tricky bike to benchmark in many ways, as on paper and going by capacity alone, you could compare it to bikes like the V-Strom 1050, but on price, it’s more aligned with things like the V-Strom 800 and XL750 Transalp. While it’s leagues behind each of those in terms of engine performance, it is supremely well specced, and incredibly keenly priced. At around £8,000, the T1002V is around £2,000 less than the smaller and more off-road-focused Tenere 700, even undercutting its Chinese counterpart, the CFMoto 800MT. Is it as good as either of them on the road? Probably not if I’be being honest, but it does do a lot of things very well. The handling and comfort are two of the big positives, alongside the undeniable level of standard spec, and it’s actually quite a nice-looking thing and seems to be well put together. There are some negative points, the engine and soft delivery being the most prominent, although its easy-going and accessible nature may suit some riders more than rip-roaring performance.

Yes, it’s from a Chinese brand that’s bought its way into the European market via the backdoor, but most big-name manufacturers have factories in Asia and the Far East, meaning it’s less of a big deal. For me, the Morbidelli T1002VX is all about value for money. If you want an adventure bike that’s got all the toys you’ll want (except for electronic suspension and adaptive cruise control) but don’t want to break the bank, or stump for one of the slightly smaller parallel twin-cylinder options, the Morbidelli feels like about your best option.

More information on the Morbidelli T1002V and T100VX can be found on the official website.

Pics and video: Full Gas Creative

Morbidelli T1002VX specs