PIKES PEAK-WINNING APRILIA TUONO 1100 RSV FACTORY
R I D E R E V I E W
P106
there, it's just drag racing, and
you need instant go."
Aprilia tried to help by emailing
various new maps over from Italy,
but for day three, the Italian fac-
tory flew over calibration engineer
Nicola Marcato, who also road
races in his spare time, to try to
fix the problem. Which he did!
"Nicola came with a trick
Marelli ECU!" beams Rennie. "He
plugged that in on the third day
of practice, and it just completely
transformed the bike, within 100
meters I was like, 'okay, let's go!'
It gave me exactly what I was
looking for. Nicola fine-tuned it
for us right up to the race, then in-
stalled the same map in the stock
ECU for us, because he had to
take the trick Marelli ECU home
with him. So it's supposed to be
now just the same as
what I raced with."
Rennie confirmed
this during a handful
of shakedown laps,
during which he also
kindly scrubbed in
the new set of super-soft Pirelli
Diablo Superbike tires furnished
for my test. Hopping aboard
for my first of three 20-minute
sessions on the bike revealed a
slightly higher (seat height is 33.1
inches vs. 32.5 inches stock)
and more spacious riding position
than the stock Tuono I'd just been
riding to re-learn the circuit on,
reflecting Rennie's slightly taller
height. But this, coupled with the
flat stock handlebar that's slightly
tilted down to let you tuck better
behind the screen on straights,
allows you to lever the bike
around quite easily, especially
through tight turns. You don't
need to hang off it to get it to
steer, so wasn't as physical a ride
as I was expecting.
However, it does pay to do all
your braking in a straight line, if
possible, then turn in quite late
to the apex so as to have space
on the exit to carry decent turn
speed. That's because braking
hard while leaned over will make
the Aprilia try to sit up and under-
steer, which you must then coun-
(Right) Boulder Park still caused a few scrapes and
bumps on the Tuono. (Below) Stripped bare, there's not
much on the Tuono that isn't on a stock Tuono.
