By Justin Hayzelden Updated: Yesterday 17:50
While Benelli’s new mid-sized Xplorer heads off the beaten track to target adventure bike sales, its road-focused stablemate, the TRK902 Stradale, has its sights set firmly on the tall-rounder market.
Both share the same 904cc parallel twin engine and steel trellis frame, but shorter travel suspension and 17in wheels provide the £8k Stradale with the means to mix it up with the likes of the Triumph Tiger Sport 800 , BMW F900XR and Yamaha Tracer 9 . Can it really compete with these stalwarts of the segment at a fraction of the cost?
Reasons to buy: + It is attractively priced at £7999. + It comes well equipped with heated kit, radar and cruise control. + The chassis feels stable and entertaining on smooth roads.
Reasons to avoid: – Poor low-speed fuelling. – The engine and chassis need further development. – Cheap-feeling switchgear and rider interface.
Benelli have stepped up to the mid-sized tall rounder market with their biggest bike yet, the TRK 902 Stradale. Built by QJMotor, it’s essentially Chinese engineering in a smart Italian suit, and with a price tag that’s just a pound under £8k looks set to tempt buyers from the more established mainstream.
It’s got all the toys, from heated seat and grips to fully adjustable suspension and a punchy (on paper) parallel-twin – not to mention a rear-facing radar for blind spot detection and collision warning.
One look at performance figures will tell you that the Stradale isn’t quite up to the level of the established competition, and with that in mind, the only bike that it can really go head-to-head with is the QJMotor SRT900S – which rolls out of the same factory in Wenling, China, and is just a six-axis IMU and some swoopy bodywork short of being essentially identical.
It even rolls on the same rubber, Pirelli Angel GT. So it seems rather apt that we’re riding the Stradale solo, where we can find out exactly what you get for your money.
From the hot seat (quite literally, the three-stage heated saddle comes as standard, as do heated grips – and they’re more than capable of keeping your bits warm), the view is of a 7in TFT and generous, electrically adjustable screen.
A long press on the left-hand switchgear’s backlit D-pad up/down buttons coaxes the latter’s elaborate mechanism into life to find the optimum angle, but it’s hard not to mash the heated accessory controls while you’re doing it.
The dash flashes red to indicate that ABS and TC are disabled and states the fact in the upper right corner of the screen. It’s a bit off-putting on the first ride and has us scrambling through options, but it clears once you pull away, just like the traditional warning light blinking off as the sensors calibrate and set. Which is a challenge in itself thanks to a spiky throttle response and juddery clutch.
Fuelling feels all over the place at low revs, with the engine hunting, dipping and surging depending on throttle position, and none of the three rider modes (Normal, Sport and Rain) do anything to alleviate the issue.
Finding that out is compounded by the fact that nothing seems to indicate which mode you’re in, and you can only switch between them at standstill when the option to do so is unlocked – it’s frustrating, to say the least.
There’s never a time on the Stradale when the connection between twistgrip, throttle bodies and engine response feels natural, whether it’s dipping and surging as you roll it on or hunting when trying to hol…