Comments on: Long Term: Benelli Leoncino 500, 5 months & 3500km

By: david donne

david donne — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 06:58:09 +0000

In an effort to get the weight down, I
bought an aftermarket exhaust, being a smaller muffler and a link pipe. After removing the OE muffler, I started the bike but surprisingly there was only a slight increase in the DB level, so this meant that supression was largely taking place in the cat box. Therefore no point in gutting the OE muffler to get a higher sound level.
Got rid of that heavy number plate bar and attached plate under seat.
Removed front RHS disk and caliper and braking still sufficient. If you were riding in Sydney, then you mightn’t do this, but in a rural area it’s fine.
That’s 12 kilos off.
Much better with a 15t front sprocket on the 500 TRAIL.

By: david donne

david donne — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:36:18 +0000

Bought a 3yr old Leoncino with 500kms and decided it needed to go on a weight shedding programme. Interesting that when i took the muffler off, the noise level barely increased suggesting that all the noise reduction was going on in that bulky catalytic converter unit. This meant that if i stripped off both these, and put a link pipe and aftermarket muffler on, the bike would sound better. Got a system from Aliexpress for $175 and now it has a nice note and not too noisy,
Next to go was that hideous number plate frame and now the plate is on a bracket under the rear light.
Next to go will be the RHS front disk and caliper. Will blank off the RH hose and remove the caliper.
Put a 15t front sprocket on and that reduced the “busyness” of the engine. means it is now doing an indicated 88kms/hr at 4000rpm viz 80kph before.
it’s a fun bike to ride in contrast to my honda Cb500X which is bland and not the least bit engaging.
If only it were lighter and that swing arm which looks as if it’s part of an oil rig was dropped.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 06:33:45 +0000

In reply to Tim O Callaghan. There's not many options for the rear just yet. We are on the hunt for some pre-load adjusters the forks to add some adjustability over them, it might be worth looking into those and some emulator valves.

By: Tim O Callaghan

Tim O Callaghan — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 06:14:04 +0000

Hi, my leoncino is great but the handling on poor roads is bump bump and slow down and hang on, any suggestions on the shock set up would be appreciated. Not a bike to do the fool on. Thanks

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 17:10:17 +0000

Great review Jeff,

Interesting note on the ground clearance and header scraping, I wonder how the 10cm taller Trail model would fare, or if that would adversely affect the geometry in any way.

Any thoughts on a comparison between the standard and the a Trail Leoncino models?

Cheers, Tom