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The Hyosung GV250 Aquila

February 1, 2008 on 8:42 pm | In Reviews |

This bike is the best-kept secret in the 400cc 250cc class.

That’s the bottom line. This is a 250cc bike that acts like the 400cc bikes from the 80’s. We’ve sold a number of Honda CM400 from the early eighties. These bikes were the Swiss Army knife bikes - used for fun, for work, light touring - whatever you needed them to do.

250cc bikes, however, are normally reserved for the “starter bike” category. Calling something a starter bike is normally a kiss of death. Sure, it’s not bad for a STARTER BIKE.

Funny thing about the Aquila tho’, people don’t usually feel the need to upgrade later. We’ve sold about 20 of them, we haven’t traded any of them in and I can’t think of anyone that sold theirs either. Why?

Well, this article give a lot of the reasons why:

Canadian Biker - Light Duty

Aquila’s are bigger and faster because they make more power by revving higher than the competition. They weigh a bit more - most people think they are larger than 250’s. I don’t fib about stuff like that - you can if you want ;^). The GV250 presents as a much larger bike. Think of it like a 400, it’s ok, I do.

GV250’s also have the Hyosung two year, “bumper-to-bumper”, transferrable warranty - Wonderful! This is the bike that taught me about Hyosung warranty support. One of my good customers bought a GV250 and came in after a month or so. He showed me that if you pushed your hand from the front of the seat to the back, you could feel a slight increase in the foam. I said, weeellll, it’s a small ridge but when I presented it to Hyosung they said, “Pat, it’s a 2 year, bumper to bumper warranty, SEND IT IN!” So when we got the new seat, my customer asked me for the old one. Nope, I’m keepin’ it! (we have to on warranty claims…) Hyosung really supports their bikes!

Back to the motor… Note that the Aquila has almost 10 horsepower more than the Honda Rebel. It weighs a bit more but in this category, that is almost not a bad thing as bikes in this class are particularly light. End result, you can maintain legal + speeds even out on the big roads with the big dogs.

Here is the hard data. This picture shows a trip I took up the Northeast Extension. The speeds were captured by GPS and then converted by GPS Visualizer. Note that the vast majority of the trip is dark blue. The speed limit there is 65MPH and the dark blue coloring shows I was going at least 66.1MPH everywhere it’s blue. This bike will sustain turnpike speeds and then some more. Top speed of the GV250 is around 95MPH.

What about the rest? Well, looks are always subjective but people generally really like the looks of the GV250. It comes in a number of nice color combinations. Here is a link to a MS Powerpoint slideset of GV250 colors here

It’s got a very low seat height. Actually my only concern when a customer asks about a GV250 is how long their legs are. I do have trouble fitting someone with a very long inseam to this bike. I wish it was even longer than it is or had a flatter seat cause I have almost never found anyone that can’t flat foot the GV250 as delivered.

In gas mileage, my customers average 65-70 MPG in daily use. A lot of folks use these for their second (or third) cars. They drive the bikes when they can and the cars/trucks when they have to. They are cheap to keep - first, because of the warranty, the list price of $3499 and the insurance costs on a 250cc bike have to be quoted to be appreciated.

Yep, the GV250 is a great bike! And it’s way more than a starter bike!