2001 Aprilia RSV Mille and RSV Mille
R.
By PAUL CARRUTHERS
PHOTOS By TOM RILES
was feeling ashamed, guilty, and a
tad forlorn. Across from me sat
Aprilia engineers Giorgio Del Ton and
Mariano Fioravanzo, the two men
behind the Mille project, and it was
the perfect opportunity to discuss the
merits of a 60-degree V-twin, the
choice of a two-into-one exhaust system ... yet all I could think about was
pasta. Bad pasta.
Here we had two Italian engineers,
tossed into Homestead, Florida, like
Hurricane Andrew, and we'd opted to
take them to an Italian restaurant,
and a bad one at that. I could barely
watch as they politely made their way
through their "pasta" while they discussed the motorcycle of which they
are such a big part. Del Ton is currently responsible for the research
and development department at
Aprilia; while Fioravanzo is the project leader for the Aprilia Sportbike
series and is generally known as the
father of the Mille - thus it was impossible not to learn a lot from the two
distinguished gentlemen who are
rightfully proud of the motorcycles
they have helped produce.
The moral of the story: Don't take
men named Giorgio and Mariano out
22
FEBRUARY 14. 2001 •
cue
for bad pasta - but if you do, keep
your ears open. Fortunately, the service was as bad as the food so there
was plenty of time for listening.
What the two men have produced
together was the real reason we were
brought to Homestead (oh, so it
I
e
n
e
vw s
wasn't for the pasta). In what was
Aprilia's first-ever American on-track
motorcycle press introduction, we
were brought to Southern Florida to
ride the RSV Mille and the RSV Mille R
- two high-performance big-bore Vtwin sportbikes that have recently
started to make an impact both on
the racetrack and in the marketplace.
Troy Corser rode the race version to
second in the 2000 World Superbike
Championship and the rewards of
such 'an accomplishment are beginning to show as the brand is gaining
