Aprilia Leonardo 250 Review

Overall Rating

Great handling, good fun to ride, especially on twisty back roads, good looks, subtly sporty without go-faster graphics, slimline short-wheelbase shape is easy to weave through traffic, good brakes, good underseat storage considering size.

Mirrors show more of your arms than a rear view. Little wind protection but this is a compromise for slimline shape and easy negotiation of traffic jams. Quite a tall machine so not really suitable for those under 5'5" or with short legs!

Previously I had a Yamaha Majesty 250, whilst being a reliable machine it's handling never inspired confidence and it was a pain to get through traffic jams. Hence I sold it and got the Leonardo 250.

The Leonardo is a good looking, slimline, short wheelbase machine and the earlier models up to 2002 (which includes mine) are powered by the Yamaha 250 4 stroke engine - in fact the same engine as in my previous Majesty and other 250 scooters. The engines are reliable and easy to service and due to it's ubiquitous nature engine parts should be easy to find - the same may not be true for the Aprilia body parts though they can be found.

In the Leonardo 250, the engine offers plenty of power to get away at the lights or get you out of trouble, it even keeps up with bigger bikes up to about 30-40mph and easily beats most standard cars away.

Speeds up to 85mph are possible with relative ease and therefore it is fast enough to keep up on the motorway and not leave you following behind the lorries. However the small physical size of the Leo means that a you don't have much presence on the roads and drivers assume you're on a 50 or 125 so you have to be much more careful. Motorway riding is a little tiring without a screen, although an aftermarket screen can be fitted would help this

The Leo comes into its own however on twisty back lanes where the excellent chassis offers plenty of fun in cornering. The Leo's handling was a complete revelation to me after the Majesty. I'm guessing it's like the difference between a Honda Goldwing and a CBR900.

The Leo is also fantastic in traffic, and is easy to weave through lanes of gridlocked cars.

It is quite a quiet machine and the seat and riding position is very comfortable. The bike is tall though and shorter riders may have problems touching the ground! The tallness does mean that the bike has decent underseat storage for a scooter of this size. In fact it beats my older model Majesty in this respect although the newer model majesty's have better underseat storage. You can fit a full face helmet under the seat of the Leo and there's still room for either a open face helmet or a bag of bits (eg wet weather gear/ bike chain etc)

All in all a great bike for commuting if the journey doesn't involve too much motorway. My current journey is about 6-7 miles on free-flowing motorway and about 10 miles on gridlocked motorway and town/country roads and the Leo handles it fine!