Sometime back in 2006, after a short and disappointing ownership of a KLR650, I ended up buying a very lightly used 2000 Aprilia Pegaso from a guy here in New Hampshire. It was a fun bike. Not very off-road worthy in its stock form, but handles the dirt roads and bumpy country tarmac with aplomb.
For those not familiar with that particular model, you probably know it better as the BMW F650 Funduro. See, when BMW first decided to get into the smaller dual sport thumper bikes they had Aprilia build the F650 for them (from 1993 through 1999). During that time Aprilia also sold a version of bike under their marque, as "Pegaso the flying mythos"
But, those crafty paisanos pulled a quick one on their ex-axis-power pals by one upping their F650 in 1997 with the Pegaso Mark III (aka "cube"). See, on the cube you got an uprated version of the Rotax thumper engine with 5 valves (BMW only got 4), full dual exhaust and dual CV carburetors (why all the duality is a very good question) The Pegaso also got better disk brakes, better (upside down) forks, and a few other little things, which are really all that separate them from each other.
I sold that bike to nice guy from Vermont back in 2008 (for a bit more than I paid for it), still with less than 6k miles on it. Fast forward to last spring: My (25 year old) son was moving to Vermont and wanted to buy a bike for himself to commute on. Surfing through the VT Craigs List I saw the same Pegaso up for sale again by the guy I had sold it to. Long story short, my son ended up buying the bike and riding it around Vermont for the past year, which is a good fit for the bike really, with all of the unpaved roads around. Riding a big dual sport or adventure style bike in northern New England makes a lot of sense.
Well, the son was looking for a change recently, something a little smoother than the 650cc paint shaker, and maybe a little more zip. I let him take my old '98 VFR800 back to VT with him, and so I've now got my little Peggy back. The thing still runs as good as it did when it left here. Here are some old pics of the bike, but it still looks pretty much the same:
I'm looking at making it a bit more dirt worthy, already have a set of Kenda Big Block DOT knobbies on the way, working on a set of bar risers and widening the foot pegs a bit for better standing position. Already have some Ortlieb dry-bag type soft panniers that will fit it, but would like to get a rack made up for some Seahorse hard cases. I'll come back and update with some new pics when I have something worth showing.
For those not familiar with that particular model, you probably know it better as the BMW F650 Funduro. See, when BMW first decided to get into the smaller dual sport thumper bikes they had Aprilia build the F650 for them (from 1993 through 1999). During that time Aprilia also sold a version of bike under their marque, as "Pegaso the flying mythos"
But, those crafty paisanos pulled a quick one on their ex-axis-power pals by one upping their F650 in 1997 with the Pegaso Mark III (aka "cube"). See, on the cube you got an uprated version of the Rotax thumper engine with 5 valves (BMW only got 4), full dual exhaust and dual CV carburetors (why all the duality is a very good question) The Pegaso also got better disk brakes, better (upside down) forks, and a few other little things, which are really all that separate them from each other.
I sold that bike to nice guy from Vermont back in 2008 (for a bit more than I paid for it), still with less than 6k miles on it. Fast forward to last spring: My (25 year old) son was moving to Vermont and wanted to buy a bike for himself to commute on. Surfing through the VT Craigs List I saw the same Pegaso up for sale again by the guy I had sold it to. Long story short, my son ended up buying the bike and riding it around Vermont for the past year, which is a good fit for the bike really, with all of the unpaved roads around. Riding a big dual sport or adventure style bike in northern New England makes a lot of sense.
Well, the son was looking for a change recently, something a little smoother than the 650cc paint shaker, and maybe a little more zip. I let him take my old '98 VFR800 back to VT with him, and so I've now got my little Peggy back. The thing still runs as good as it did when it left here. Here are some old pics of the bike, but it still looks pretty much the same:
I'm looking at making it a bit more dirt worthy, already have a set of Kenda Big Block DOT knobbies on the way, working on a set of bar risers and widening the foot pegs a bit for better standing position. Already have some Ortlieb dry-bag type soft panniers that will fit it, but would like to get a rack made up for some Seahorse hard cases. I'll come back and update with some new pics when I have something worth showing.
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