Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

FIRST RIDE i Aprilia RSV1000 Mille , ." .. ... . By Alan Cathca rt Photo s by Emilio Jimenez ew motorcycles have bee n as eage r ly awai ted as A p rt lras entree into mo to rcycling'S Ma jor Leagues with th e RSVI 000 Mille - th e Italian compa ny 's first-ever multi-cylin der fo u r-stroke . Ever si nce Europe's wo rld -title-winni ng su p remos of twostroke GP radng first displ ayed the' 60degree V-twin l ooocc su perbike engine (dev e lo ped in con junction w it h its engine partners Rotax) at the Bologna Sh ow th ree yea rs ago, th e bike world has hungered for the completed product, w hich finall y made its debut at the Milan Show last September. But, uncharacteristically for a company so ade pt at responding quickl y to the shifting sands of taste and fashion in the scooter market - where Aprilia has mad e its fortu nes by selling mor e than 400,000 powered two-wheelers in th e 1998 model year - Aprilia management has taken its time to get the Mille into the showrooms. Why? To be as certain as possib le that the first of the .bikes with which the growing Italian company plans to become a fifth force in wo rld biking was as refined, reliabl e and read y for ridin g on road or race track as possible. Was it w orth the wait? Forty- five laps in four sessions in 95-degree heat . on Barcelona's Montmelo GP circui t, fol- lowed by a 11O -mile road blast into the Serra de Montseny, the foothills of the Pyrenees to the north of the Cata lan capital, provid ed the answer. It see ms hard to imagine that Aprilia has not been making bikes like this for some considerable time, in the course of which it has acqui red a unique u ndersta ndi ng of how to m eet th e practical dema nds of street-riding sport bikers wi thou t compromisi ng perform an ce on the race track. No other contes tant in the su pe rbi ke class, w hethe r tw in or fou r (no tripl es - yet'), combines the best of both worlds in street-l egal guise - ye t the RSVl000does. It's a mark of Aprilia's achievement especi ally as new kids on the su per bike block - that it has man aged to deliver a bike you could genuinely consid er rid ing to work in comfort on; then use as a hard-edged mount for Sunday-morning blasts along Racer Road and also, with quick and easy suspensio n cha nges and minor adjustment to the chassis setu p, turn into a devastatingl y effective per former on the race track. In my judgement (and as an avowed ducaiista, I'll admit it took so me convlnci ng l), the Mill e is th e fi nes t a llround s p or tbike ye t brou ght to the market - a new benchmark for others to aim a t, which "is also , jud gi ng by th e four d ifferent examples I' ve ridden so far (all of w hich were su p pose d ly volu me production bikes, not han d-built specials ), ext reme ly we ll-ma de, wit h a qua lity of manufacture an d overa ll finish any Jap a nese manufactu rer woul d be proud of. And all thi s for a very compe titive price, which in Britain is £9699 (about $16,000) on the road (against £11,750 for the equivalent Ducat i, the 916 Biposto). Reckon Aprilia might have to step up production so mewha t, above the mere 4000 bikes it pl an s to build befor e th e end of 1998, don 't you? Looking at the Mille in ph otos or on th e show ci rcu it w ill prob ably ha ve given yo u th e impression that it ' s a ju mped -u p RS250, a scaled -up version o f ApriIia' s s por ti ng s t ro ke r aimed squ a rely at outrunning a Ducati 916 a lo ng Racer Road , with th e same uncompromisin g engine performance 'and hard-edged handling as its compatriot rival. And with Aprilia's top management admitting up front that the primary objective in de veloping the Mille was to concoct the basis for a title-winning superbike to build Aprilia's big bike credentials, that expectation could only be reinforced. Get your race face on befor e you r id e this street-lega l superbike, right? Well, think again - first impressions are not al wa ys the ri ght ones . Anyone who expects the lon g-awaited 60-degree Vtwin sportbike to be nothing more than ApriIia' s answer to the demon desmo will rapidly change his opinion on ce h.e throws a leg over the Mille and takes it fo r a rid e - es pecially if he is ta llI n stature and long in leg. For, unli ke the Du cati, thi s is a realwor ld roa d bike ta ilo r ed to s ui t th e large r sport-ri der sta tu re that predomi na tes i n a reas s uc h as No rt her n Europe, the United Sta tes or Australia th e kind th at never feels truly comfo rta ble o n a 916 b ut jus t pu ts up wi t h being perch ed on it in orde r to relish riding th e benchmark bike of today' s st reet superbikes. At 6 feet tall, I'm one such cust omerand the biggest su rprise I go t climbing aboard the RSVlooo for the first time is how comfortable it is to strad d le - spacious even - for someone of my size. But the downs ide of this is that shorter riders will find the Mille qu ite a daunting bike to park themselves on, with a very ' tall rear ride height you have to tiptoe over in order to climb aboard. Also, in spite of the V-twin engine's d ry-sump design that should theoretically make jt sit lower in the frame, there' s a high-se t fuel tank that has been carefu lly shaped and flattened to let a taller bloke like me wr ap himself around it, so as to sit comfortabl y astride the bike. Someo ne with shorter arms, though, is going to find the fuel tank rather bulky, making the quite low -set yet flat-an gled clip-ens a bit of a reach away . Distinctive as it is, I liked the riding position - even if at rest the Aprilia does

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