Quick Shiver 750 vs 900 review

[Frodo]

NZ_mana just had his Shiver 900 back from its service and invited me over to try it out. We've had very little rain and temperatures up to 30 degrees for the last two months so I picked a day where at the top of the Rimutaka Range it was ten degrees and heavy rain. I'll post a short trip report elsewhere, but first off to the bikes. First some photos. The Shiver 900 and the silver and red Shiver 750 are John's (anyone want to buy his 750?). The black Shiver is mine. Note that John has swapped the fairing and headlight nacelle from his 750 to the 900 (to avoid confusion!).

[Frodo]

Appearance, ergos and sound:

Visibly there is not much to distinguish the bikes. The front guard is a faux carbon, but looks good and covers more of the exposed forks. The tank side extensions have a grill that gives the front end a more solid appearance - I like it. I don't like the faff rear ends of the exhaust. The exhaust is deflected to the outside and does not flow over all of the rear disk. I think that the exhaust sounds better than the standard 750 exhaust, but not nearly as good as the GPR cans on my 750. John has yet to put the GPR cans from his 750 onto the 900 - that should make a positive improvement, as well as significantly reducing weight that is located high and to the rear of the bike.

I had heard about the new wheels, but I had to count the spokes to prove that they have fewer spokes (3x2 vs 5x2). It looks like the rear rim is the same size as the second gen Shivers (5.5 inch). In NZ, the standard tyres are Pirelli Angels, which are better than the Dunlops that came on my Shiver.

The front brake disks appear a little larger, but this may be because they are no longer waved.

The seat seems very similar and the ergos also very similar to the 750. The clutch action seems lighter and smoother - I understand they have changed the piston diameters.

And then there is the TV, I mean dash! Aprilia has clearly moved to the 2010's with the dash and it runs through an impressive light show on start up and shut down. Perhaps I am old school, but I thought that the old dash was easier to read. I like the analog tacho and the digital speedo has numbers that are visibly bigger than the other numbers, so both were less legible on the new dash.

[Frodo]

Riding:

Let's cut to the chase: the 900 has definitely got more grunt at the points in the rev range that I use most frequently. It pulls with authority from 4000 rpm. The 750 is no slacker at this point, but needs 5 or 6 thousand rpm to give the same thrust. The front felt light under hard acceleration, but I'm no wheelie king and had no intention in finding out if I was insured. The motor feels very solid when under acceleration - you can almost feel each stroke, but any vibration is no bother. Hard to explain, but it feels like a bigger motor.

Fuelling is better. Indeed, I rode it in Sport mode around town and it was as comfortable as my 750 in Tour mode.

So the motor gets a big tick. Frankly, Aprilia have addressed the relatively few limitations I felt the motor had. But your mileage may vary - I bought a V-twin and not an inline four, that excels in the sort of ride I did today.

Suspension? It was interesting comparing the 900 (at factory settings) with John's 750 with Sachs shock and unknown (unnamed) forks (original damping oil) with my 750's Nitron shock and Marzocchi forks with Belray 0W oil.
The 900 is clearly better front and rear than John's 750. My main criterion is the ability to control bumps, especially in corners, in our often marginal back roads. John's 750 would skip and step out in some corners more than the 900, and I thought that the front forks were more compliant over smaller bumps. I think that my front end was quite similar to that of the 900, but the Nitron shock is definitely better. The original 750 shock is really harsh over hard bumps and I felt that the 900's was better.

Steering? John had dropped his triple clamp three rings on the forks and the 900 and my bike showed just one ring. The biggest difference in how the 900 tracked compared to my 750 was that I had a rather squared off Metzeler Z8 at the rear and the 900 had nice new Pirelli Angels. I've liked the handling of the Shivers, but I have rather limited recent experience with other bikes. In my view the Shiver is better suited to out back roads than the DS1000 Multistrada I owned before the Shiver.

[To be continued]

[phlip]

Nice write up!

[nz_mana]

Thanks for the write up. It was great to catch up with you again, even better to ride with you and get another's opinion of the new bike. I agree with you on all points except I do like the dash, to me the 900 is definitely a better bike than the 750.

For the record, The fairing and headlight nacelle swapped over directly, only had to make up extension leads for the indicators due to their being moved down. Similarly, the hugger and pillion seat cowl was a simple swap over and it looks like the exhaust and decat will also be a simple swap (with a plug in the oxygen sensor hole - the 900 has separate sensors in the headers instead of the 750s single one in the cat.

Pity we had to cut the ride short (due to an emergency in my family). Maybe we could try it again sometime.

[Frodo]

And then we rode back to NZ_mana's place and this is what he has in his shed:





An MV Augusta 350 (now bored out to 400), pushrod parallel twin and a HD (Aermacchi) 350, but NZ_mana can tell you more.

But I digress...
For my riding style (one-up, sports-touring up to say 600km/day, no motorways, many backcountry roads, some gravel, must be able to carry camping gear), size (I'm 6 foot two inches (188cm)) and my requirement that I can do most common maintenance (valves, steering head and wheel bearings, etc) I thought I had a near perfect bike, a Shiver 750.
And then came the Shiver 900! Same chassis, slightly better suspension (could try a bit harder), great motor (!)...
But please Aprilia, I wanted less, not more, weight.

Shiver 750s can currently be bought new for NZD 12,990. The 900 is $3k more and definitely worth the extra coin!
Is it worth me trading my bike in and paying another $6k or $7k? No, I'm sufficiently happy with my current wheels. Indeed, today's ride convinced me that I've got a pretty damn good bike!

[Micah / AF1 Racing]

Pretty much my take as well.

[Yankee_750]

What I would have thought - thanks for confirming. Great write-up/pics (as usual)
Cheers Gents (waiting on the 350/400 review! HA!)