Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Aprilia Tuana end of the wide handlebar do the rest. Then, at 7000 rpm, there's an extra kick of power as the engine surges stronger and with impressive speed toward the 10,500-rpm revlimiter though by then you should already have hit a higher gear long ago, to ride the Tuono's impressively muscular torque curve peaking at 7250 rpm, just past the serious power threshold. It's a bike with impressive, usable drive all the way through the rev range, with a torque curve that peaks early, and is then supplanted by max power at higher revs. What a nice, real-world ride. Just one minor criticism of the powertrain: It would have been good to see the bike running lower overall gearing, rather than the RSY-R's 17/42T ratio, because this would cut out having to use bottom gear as often, and avoid having to run through towns in third or fourth gear to avoid transmission snatch. While this is still a Superbike in streetfighting mode, it would be better to gear it down a couple of teeth on the rear sprocket, especially for the kind of town use it's likely to see more of than its R-model genesis. Agreed, says Nennewitz - except that it's an arcane twist of EU homologation rules that, once you change the overall gearing by even a single tooth, you then have to put the bike through the whole emissions, safety and dynamic homologation process again - with consequent loss of time and extra cost if Aprilia had had to rectify the Mille R package all over again for the Tuono. So, tuonisti some anti-Brussels lateral thought required here: Buy the bike as is, then spend a bit of money buying a 2T-larger rear sprocket from your aftermarket dealer, and you'll have an even better motorcycle than the one you just bought. One that's already pretty close to my ideal everyday ride, after my day spent morphing the Muraglione aboard the Tuono thunderbike. This is truly a bike that delivers the best of both worlds, with great agility flicking it from side to side through the twists and turns, before squirting down the next straight in third or fourth gear, then back one for some engine braking aided by Aprilia's patented pneumatic slipper clutch, while squeezing hard on those fabulous Brembo stoppers without any grab or fear of locking the wheel as you trailbrake into the turn leaned hard over. Just think about laying it into a bend, and the Tuono's already got there and done it - not in a twitchy or nervous way, just totally responsive and easy-steering. Did you go in too deep and need to correct a line? No problem - just finger the adjustable brake lever, don't worry about the Tuono wanting to sit up and understeer over the precipice in front of you, because it won't, and just pull it back on line a 40 JUNE 19, 2002' lCl U lCl I e little tighter with that wide handlebar. Hit a bump or series of ripples in the typical mountain road surface while cranked hard over, and even on the standard settings the compliant Ohlins suspension just eats them up, shrugging off road shock in unruffled manner as that great rear Pirelli hooks up to repeat the process all over again, en route to the next turn. But then find a long bit of more-orless straight road and revel in the Tuono's tigerish engine performance, the lusty lilt of the narrow-angle Ytwin engine rising an octave or two as you pour on the power wide open in top gear - noting as you do so that the bike runs completely true and straight at high speed, even with a light hand on each grip and the Ohlins steering damper located low down in front of the bottom triple clamp on a loose setting. There's none of the wobbles or weaves so many other performance nudiebikes throw at you when you gas them wide open at top speed. The Tuono's a thoroughbred thunderbike: it's been well-sorted. It's also far too good a bike for just 200 well-heeled owners worldwide to have the privilege of owning one. If Aprilia can market a Mille R for nearly $15,000, then surely they must be able to strip the bodywork off one and Tuono-ise it with humble volume-production plastics instead of carbon fiber, then sell the result for around $11,000. Do that, and Beggio's boys will have rewritten the rules of the Naked-bike market: Until they do (and I'm betting they will, maybe as soon as the 2003 model year), the bike that makes Ducati's S4 Monster second-best will only be the preserve of a few lucky owners. It makes you wonder what took them so long. CN n e _ s ioJs Belief Aprilia boss Ivano Begsio has an astute grasp of what the public wants - as evidenced by his company's blitzkrieg success in the Italian home market with its selection of scooters spearheaded by the Scarabeo benchmark big-wheeler, or by the way Aprilia has equaled its much longer-established Ducati rival's market share in its first full year of big-bike sales in the USA - a fact which among other things cost the top man at Ducati North America his job. Or, perhaps most Important of all, by the fact that, exactly five years after its launch, the RSV Mille achieved the number-one slot in twin-cylinder sportbike sales in Europe in the 2001 model year, outselling its Honda, Suzuki and especially Ducati rivals in this key sportbike sector. All without winning the World Superbike Championship, though - well, not yet, anyway. The fact that Aprilia has succeeded in establishing itself as a major multi-cylinder motorcycle manufacturer in just half a decade, while all the time continuing to ignore the flourishing Naked-bike market represented by the Ducati Monster et ai, has been a bit of a mystery - though maybe being spared a production version of the plug-ugly Shiver V-twin prototype which Aprilia trailed around bike shows in the mid- '90s was a blessed relief. Even without a middleweight 600/750cc V-twin product range for entry-level sportbiking, which would allow it to compete with the M600 Monster that has underpinned Ducati's entire profitability for the past few years, it seemed strange that Aprilia continued to ignore this lucrative market sector - though the fact that the abortive Falco-based Fighter which was supposed to have been displayed on the company's stand at the Milan Show last September was pulled at the last moment reputedly because Beggio didn't believe it was sufficiently individual, showed they were at least trying to produce something refreshing and distinctive. But it wasn't until the Bologna Show last December that Aprilia finally came up with the goods - not once, but twice over, displaying two bikes from opposite ends of the market in terms of both price and performance, with the RSV-R-based Tuono coming in at the top end, and the less-costly, lower-performance Mana concept bike based on the Caponord tarmac trailie taking care of the volume market. Originally shown just to gauge customer reaction, the Mana has now been confirmed for production as a 2004-year model, in which form it will be launched at the Milan Show in September next year, according to none other than the boss himself. "Our problem was to develop a Naked model which deserved to be called an ApriJia, which produces the same excitement to ride as our other models, but which looks as young, as fresh and as distinctive as all our other products do," said Beggio. "It was important that it should have its own individual styling, and that it should appeal to as wide a range of tastes as possible. For this reason, we decided to develop two completely separate models, of which the more performance-related Tuono is the first. But we wiU definitely produce the Mana as well next year, because the response to both models after we unveUed them at Bologna was so positive. Each of them succeeds in different ways in meeting our design objectives - now please tell me after riding it if, at least in the case of the Toono, we delivered what was expected of us."

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