Laverda 500 Zeta
LAVERDA 500 ZETA
CYCLE WORLD TEST
Laverda. To U.S. bikers conditioned by years of big displacement road rocket Triples, the name suggests hump-backed, long-legged brutes bristling with horsepower and purpose.
But for Europeans,
Moto Laverda has also become a source of lithe, athletic half-liter Twins so nimble they've become the basis of a single-make road racing formula in Spain and Italy. The Laverda Zeta 500 first appeared at the Milan show of 1975, and has been a solid performer in European showrooms since its introduction. It has only just become available in the U.S., partly because of its price, mostly because of Laverda's previously sketchy marketing arrangements on these shores. This last was recently resolved when Laverda and John Taylor of Schenectady-based Yankee Accessories Corp. (which also imports Ossa and SWM) struck a deal granting exclusive U.S. distribution rights to Yankee. Although this hasn't led to an overnight proliferation of Laverda dealerships, a network is being developed by Yankee and you can now get bikes and spares some where other than by mail order at La verda's Breganze, Italy works.
One of the few financially solid motor cycle companies in Europe, Moto Laverda is able to go its own way in terms of engineering and command a price that only unswerving excellence can justify.
The motorcycle division is only a small profit center in the company's grand scheme, with agricultural equipment and campers dominating the gross revenues.
The motorcycles exist largely because the brothers Laverda like motorcycles, particu larly those bearing the family name. Thus they are fashioned from the same quality goods that typify everything manufactured by the company, with the extra gloss thai only love can add.
Like the series of big road wrinklers that preceded it, the Zeta shows loving touches throughout: Brembo triple discs, Marzoc chi suspension, Nippondenso instrumen tation, Bosch electronic ignition, cast aluminum alloy wheels and a sophisti cated twincam four-valve engine that's at least as potent as its opposite number from the Yamaha works. Unlike its bigger broth ers, though, this Laverda is very handy in tight places, thanks to a combination of excellent cornering clearance, light weight and quick steering. The result is a nifty little canyon racer to augmeril the longer range cruise missiles of the Laverda arse nal. In many ways it is the equal of its top rivals-the Suzuki GS550, Honda CX500. Yamaha XS500E and Ducati 500 GTL (we.have yet to see the new Moto Morini 500 V-Twin)-and under certain conditions it may just be the best of the lot.
What Price Do You Set On Individuality?
The engine is an agreeable and attractively turned out little unit that packs more punch than is immediately apparent. It has slightly less bore and slightly more stroke than the Yamaha 500 Twin, but is a dead ringer for it in terms of performance. In the tradition of all vertical Twins, it vibrates, both below 3000 rpm and in the upper rev ranges. Although none of the test riders found the vibrations particularly off-putting, they are impossible to ig -fore. They tickle the rider's knees (where they contact the tank), feet and hands and also set up resonances that are disturbing until you're accustomed to them. Laverda's R&D people are conscious of this short coming, of course, and are working up plans to add counter-rotating balance shafts, a la the Yamaha XS500s and Honda Hawk 400s, as a running change in the not too-distant future.
Generally speaking, though, once you begin exploring this bike's swoop quotient, you forget about the vibrations. When the Laverda's 180-deg. crank begins turning in excess of 6000 rpm, things begin to hap pen-again,just like the Yamaha. The Zeta begins generating power about 1000 revs below this figure and seems happiest cruis ing at about 5600 rpm, which translates to about 70 mph. But to make the whole package work, you can't be reluctant about buzzing the tach needle up to the 8000 rpm redline and beyond. Suzuki's 550cc Four and Honda's new 500cc pushrod V-Twin offer more flexibility, but operated with an eye toward keeping the revs in optimum, the Laverda Twin will run with them in quarter miles and will leave the XS500 behind. The Zeta's potency is abetted con si4erabl~ by light weight of course It s 60 lb. lighter than the Yamaha, 69 lb. below the Suzuki and 70 lb. under the Honda, a statistic that's important in more performance areas than just straight-line acceleration.
One of the most significant of these areas is stopping. Although almost all of today's street bikes are capable of respect able stopping distances, none can match this one. Not only are the distances excep tional, control is effortless. The rear disc is beautifully manageable, providing excel lent feedback to the rider even though the linkage connecting the foot pedal to the rear hydraulic system seems as if it might have been engineered by Rube Goldberg. It looks zany, but it works. The dual front discs, which are cast iron with enough stainless content to keep them from getting rusty, are superb. Lever effort is minimal, and the power of the calipers is exemplary. These brakes are race-ready right out of the box. We wish all street bikes would stop as well as this one.
The Zeta's 6-speed gearbox is also a useful ally for extracting max performance from this bike. The ratios are nicely matched to the engine's rather narrow powerband, once you make the big jump from first to second. Shifting is a bit notchy, and it's virtually impossible to hit neutral with the engine idling, but gener-> ally speaking the business of shifting doesn't intrude on the rider's conscious ness when he's busy sorting out a series of quick bends and that's what this bike is all about. This also holds true for the clutch. A wet, multi-plate setup, it comes in rather abruptly, making quick starts a bit tricky, but once the Zeta is rolling it is precise and effortless. Lever pull is light.
The Zeta's suspension drew mixed re views from the test staff, some of whom found it too stiff. However, all acknowl edged that for sporting purposes the setup is right. Call it taut rather than stiff, be cause compliance is good. The forks work well on bumps of any size, and the rear provided a surprisingly good freeway ride.
This is one of the few Street bikes we've seen lately that didn't need its rear shocks taken up to full pre-load immediately when it was time for some back road derring-do. Only the heaviest test riders opted for the top (fifth) pre-load setting.
Moving the pre-load up proved to bean irritating job. The tool kit, which is rather skimpy compared to other Laverdas we've seen, included a pre-load adjustment tool (other Laverdas have a lever cast onto the shock's bottom collar for this purpose) but we found that the brake rotor and chain guard made the actual adjustment a real chore.
As noted above, the Zeta's handling is as quick and precise as anything we've en-~ countered in this class. However, there is a flaw. On high speed sweepers-say 80 mphplus-a low frequency yawing sets in up front. It's almost too slow to be called a wobble, but it's apparent enough to be disconcerting. In attempting to account for this, we looked first at the frame, a single downtube, backbone setup that seems to have been engineered for low weight. As a result, neither frame nor swing arm look as beefy as they do on bigger Laverdas. But a lot of thrashing around in tight places has convinced us the frame isn't the source of the wobble. In hard cornering at lower speeds there isn't a trace of flex. The handsome cast wheels augment this im pression, and the tires-both 3.25-18 MT15 Pirellis-are excellent. Although some riders expressed an interest in seeing a slightly fatter rear, these skins provided excellent stick heeled over or straight up.
Back to the wobble. The popular theory here is that the combination of a steep rake (27.5 deg.) and brake calipers mounted on the front of the fork legs may conspire to produce this phenomenon. If we had time, we'd like to experiment with a steering damper or a set of aftermarket triple clamps, or perhaps a 19-in. wheel in place of the stock 18-in, item. A half-degree more rake ought to lend more front end stability without sacrificing too much of the bike's sensitive handling response.
Up top the Zeta gets good marks. The seat is designed to augment this bike's athletic character and is consequently pad ded in a no-nonsense fashion, a trifle firm for general cruising but just fine for barn storming. The bars are sporting but high enough for general all-around use, and all hands found them agreeable. The footpegs are set rather high for around-town com fort, but their position was dictated by cornering clearance considerations.
There's more than enough of this, so much, in fact, that the Laverda designers haven't seen any need for a folding feature to the pegs. To get these pegs on the ground, though, you really have to be over on the beam ends.
Bosch electronic ignition is employed, in league with a 150-watt alternator and 15 AH battery. This combination brings the Zeta to life at the first tickle of the electric starter (no auxiliary kickstart). The drill is full choke and no throttle-the 32mm Dellorto pumper carbs insure good throt tle response but will flood a cold engine.
The Zeta's instrumentation, by Nippon denso, is very good. The mechanical tach on our bike showed some erratic behavior between 6000 and 8000 rpm, but we regard this as an individual failing rather than a characteristic of the breed. This goes for the turn signals and horn which, on our bike, were out of order, a result of this machine serving hazardous duty on the bike show circuit before it came to casa CYCLE WORLD. The headlamp is a Bosch H4 quartz-halogen unit, which is twice as good as an ordinary sealed beam. The rather complex controls for the head lamp include a functioning on-off switch and a flasher, useful items both.
The bike arrived with a single small rear-view mirror which we promptly re placed with a set borrowed from a Ka wasaki. These aren't really in harmony with the bike's outstanding good looks, but they do allow you to see what's going on behind you. We recommend some sort of substitution when you pick up your bike at the dealer.
Another small but irritating shortcom iñg is the way the spark plugs (Bosch X260T2) are sunk down below the level of the cam covers, making it almost impossible to get them out without removing the gas tank. The tank, held in place by pivot mounts at the front and a rubber fastener at the rear, is easily removed, but one shouldn't have to resort to this for mere spark plug extraction.
As we mentioned, the Laverda Zeta 500 is pricey', which may be understating things a trifle. For the same thoney-$2995--you can lay hands on an excellent 1000cc bike, or you can buy any of the other half-liter machines and have a lot of change left over. But Moto Laverda has never billed itself as a bargain shop. The aim is to create exciting machines for connois seurs-and for racers. Viewed from either of these perspectives, the Zeta is consistent with its larger brothers. It is intriguing and generally solid in its essentials, particularly the engine, and it is visibly Different; attractively so. We think it's particularly attractive as a potential production racer. With the exception of what we feel is a curable-and therefore minor-handling deficiency, it's virtually race-ready right out of the crate.
It's fun,' it's functional and it's ap pealingly different. And therein lies the Zeta's U.S. market potential. If you have a taste for exotic machinery in a good-look ing package, this bike is a steal. We don't see how you can pass it up.
HERE'S WHERE YOU GET ONE
As noted in the test, Laverda's U.S. dealer network is still coalescing under the distributorship of Yankee Accessories Corporation. As a result, the best place to obtain info on your nearest dealer is through Yankee. Write:
Yankee Accessories Corp. P.O. Box 36, Dept. CW-7 Schenectady, N.Y. 12301 Phone: (518) 355-6010
LAVERDA 500 ZETA
SPECIFICATIONS
$2995
Forks on the Zeta are firm, yet not harsh. With nearly 40 lb. spring preload in each leg, it takes a decent size input to compress them initially. But high compliance, due in part to the low seal friction, means super control for the sports rider, for which the setup is ideal. Rear suspension is in tune with the front, both on paper and on the road. One hundred-pound springs with 65 lb. preload per shock makes for a firm ride, and damping rates are high enough to maintain full control in the twisties. These are rebuildable, a definite plus when they become soft with age. Tests performed at Number 1 Products
