Scooter Review Aprilia SportCity 250 When peak hour’s your playground, this SportCity’s a fine team-mate. Narrow Strong $7750+orc
Words by PETER COX, photography by KEVIN LING When you are squeezing between the front bumper of a BMW and the wing mirror of a Mercedes you’ll be glad your scooter is a SportCity.From front to rear it’s super-model skinny. If you can get your shoulders through the gap, the rest of the scooter is sure to follow.
Add a punchy 250cc engine to aid your escape and you’ve got Aprilia’s biggest SportCity, shading the 125 and 200cc models already in the range. If you like the style and want to seek out narrow spaces Aprilia are charging about $10 per cc in engine capacity to go from the 125 to the 200. This covers the $760 difference between the $5590 125 model and the $6750 200 model. To go from the 200 to the 250 model is $20 per cc, with the 250 1000 more than the 200 at $7750. All these prices are recommended retail, ou’d have to take on road costs into account as well.
I’ve ridden all three SportCity models, although the 200 was only ridden for a few blocks, and the 250 is defi nitely the pick if you have the cash and the correct licence. For me a key factor is that, unlike the 125 and the 200, my helmet will fi t under the seat of the 250 with just enough room for my gloves. I use an open face helmet with a peak and fl ip-down face shield for commuting and this too deep for the smaller SportCitys’ underseat storage.
 I am not sure if Aprilia has taken more care with the design of the underseat storage space or whether it is just a matter of a less intrusive engine, but the fact that I can get my helmet under there is a breakthrough almost as important as the extra go. Forget your full-face helmet though, the space is probably too narrow and the sculpted base of the luggage area is unlikely to work if your helmet has a chin bar. A loaf of bread and basic groceries fi t okay but don’t put the ice cream under the seat, it gets pretty hot down there after you’ve nipped across town. Does a good job of keeping the fish and chips warm though!
So after a little victory dance about a helmet and gloves fitting under the seat you’ve almost reached your storage limit. Wet weather gear won’t go under there with the helmet – maybe a half helmet, pudding basin style would do it – and a briefcase or laptop bag certainly won’t fit. You’d need a top box for that sort of kit, although I was quite pleased with my laptop computer bag parked on the fl at footwell between the leg shield and the engine cover. There wasn’t much room left for my feet but it worked pretty well. Highway pegs anyone?
There is a glovebox behind the leg shield but I don’t rate it. The publicity photos show a CD on the left side of the compartment and that’s the limit. The test SportCity’s tool kit was on the right side and there was room forsunglasses or my phone but not enough room for the PDA phone and its charger. As you’d need a key to open the glovebox it won’t be much good for your coins or toll tag and it isn’t big enough to take a street directory. Dump it Aprilia, maybe the charging socket can be external and use the luggage space for a cup holder so I can ferry hot drinks around?
Gear organised, it was the open road for me. Actually, it was the congested roads around Sydney and the ideal stomping ground for a scooter with a big engine and a skinny body.
 “Effortless” would have to be the word for commuting on the SportCity 250. At 148kg dry it is quite light, the 15-inch wheels are a good compromise between nimble handling and bump control and the engine gives you the option of acceleration OR brakes in times of trouble. That’s a comfort if you are used to riding a motorcycle and expect power to be part of your toolkit. Smaller scooters, especially under 150cc, only give you the option of braking. I do like having the option to gun it and leave trouble behind.
The engine gives its best when you are rolling, with acceleration from around 20km/h quite strong. There is some delay off the line but cars seemed to go backwards in my mirrors quickly enough away from the lights. While the SportCity 250 doesn’t generate the g-force off the line the way large-engined scooters and motorcycles can, the engine deserves plenty of praise for providing strong performance where it is needed for urban life. The SportCity 250 will accelerate up a steep bridge like the Sydney Gladesville monster and still performs fine when my 10-year-old is on the back.
On the freeway headed west I saw 100km/h come up quick enough but acceleration slowed down after that. There was more to come after 110 if I wanted to wait but that’s the freeway limit so that will do nicely. The test scooter only had 500km on the odometer so it might have more to give after some more street time; regardless, though, the SportCity 250 conquered all the roads and freeways you could need to cover between city centre and urban fringe. Handling was light and manoeuvrable at low speed but stable and comfortable up to the freeway limits.
The suspension was acceptable but doesn’t use its travel as effectively as I’d like. Too much of the front suspension is used when the rider sits on the bike and the suspension – at both ends – can bottom out with a bit of a crash as the bike hits larger bumps. You can increase the preload on the rear suspension but the front is non-adjustable. Your other options, of course, are to ride around the bumps or to slow down.
With two discs up front the 250cc SportCity is better braked than its smaller brothers. I’d like some adjustable levers on both brakes as I found it a bit of a stretch to the levers, which then like a good squeeze for hard braking. I’d also suggest that, after parking the SportCity in the rain, you approach from the left. On the right side a number of alloy pieces around the engineand muffler support need a good polish after a few days of showers. Don’t park your SportCity with the tail facing an oncoming storm. The morning after a recent thunderstorm I found one soaked glove and a damp helmet under the seat, topped off with a puddle of water in the bottom of the underseat storage unit. There don’t seem to be any drain holes down there. My suspicion is that the water runs down from the tailpiece and the sealing lip around the storage compartment isn’t deep enough.
On longer rides the seat is okay as it is broad and well shaped but I wouldn’t call it plush. With no upper fairing you are quite exposed to the windblast above the waist which will be good or bad depending on the temperature and the chance of rain. But that’s the pleasure of the SportCity – you are involved in the ride, working out tactics for a good point-to-point time rather than lolling in a comfy seat with your brain on stand-by.
There are certainly no distractions on the instrument panel, just a big analogue speedo and the time in large letters. A mode button on the right handlebar cluster allows the rider to switch between the odometer, trip and voltmeter. There is a temperature gauge to the right and, for no explicable reason,a fuel gauge to the left of the clock. Not that I am against fuel gauges, it’s just that this one didn’t budge off “full” for 115km. I got nervous and had to fill up but the scooter hadn’t quite used half the nine-litre tank. The frugal, fuelinjected 250 was travelling more than 27km for each litre sipped so I was in no danger of running out of fuel. The Aprilia SportCity 125 did something similar so perhaps I shouldn’t have panicked?
The slim bodywork also means that there isn’t much to hide your legs behind and, despite the fl at footwell, the tight space between the front of the seat and the back of the legshield means you won’t get your feet together. In hot weather you’d better keep your knees together though, as the heat exhausts off the back of the radiator are at knee height. I had my briefcase tucked down behind the leg shield and my feet were right out at the very edge of the footwell, forcing my knees wider than usual and straight into the path of the escaping heat. The jet of warmth out of those vents would be lovely in winter but it is to be avoided at any other time. That accessory lap cover Aprilia sells for the SportCity would probably be quite warm in winter with the help of the radiator vents!
So throw on a topbox Aprilia and I’ll take one after just one question: “Why doesn’t it have a sidestand?”
As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 29/06/2007
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