Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128308
[ _A-.:p r__a_R_5_3_cu_b_ - ~ jl; _ e o m e t im es yo u're no t so sure S afte rward if it wa s such a good idea at the time to say yes, but when Aprilia president Ivano Beggio generously arranged an exclusive test of his company's RS3 Cube threecy linder pneum at ic-valved MotoGP contender for me , I said, "Yes, please!" befo re he could change his mind. Then I sat back and started wondering if I'd done the right thing. After all, this is the motorcycle tha t no less an authority than Colin Edwards has proclaimed was "bo rn bad" - a motorcycle that has "just so many things that need fixing," including its apparent appetite for wheelies, lack of front-end feel, chatter at _ both ends , and especially an unpredictab le response from its ride-by-wire throttle. Edwards' erstwhile teammate in the 2003 works Aprilia team, No riyuki Haga, crashed the Cu be no less than 28 t imes in a single season before saying a less-thanfond farewell to a motorcycle on w hich he claimed , "It is 2oo-percent not possible to control sliding. I want an analog bike, not a digita l bike. I want control." Hmm - maybe I' d better ring II Presidente back and fe ign illness, rather than just ow n up to fear. It's a glorious late November day in southern Spain, and he re I am at the Jerez racetrac k w here the factory Aprilia and Ducati MotoG P teams are shar ing the cirAn t h cuit for a early off-season test, just before the compulsory one-month shutdown in December and January. They should have the Union Jack flying above the Aprilia pit, fo r today is the first time that the facto ry's new MotoGP r ider for 2004, Brit ish Supe rbike Champ ion Shane Byrne, has gotten acquainted with the bike he' ll be racing ne xt season - at least until the new, smaller and lighter th ree-cylinder con tende r comes on line midway through the year. "This is the most fantastic bike to ride I cou ld possibly imagine," enthuses a wideeyed Shakey to me after a morning on the Cube. "It's so , so fast - but it's not the handful I expected. I found it really enjoy - 4nni\lc,..c.~"'11 able to ride , eve n if there's room for improvement on the chassis to get rid of the chatter! It's wicked !" O kay, so now it was my turn . I hopped aboard the Cube and discovered it' s quite tall at the rear, though not as much as the Kawasaki ZX-RR I was riding three weeks earlier at Valencia, which also felt wider than the triple. Still, the Aprilia does seem rather chunky to sit on, and it definitely feels bulkier than Valentino Rossi's Honda, t hough abo ut as lo ng. The Cube is quite broad across the frame spars , per haps reflecting the width of the three-cylinder Cosworthdeveloped engine, wh ich doesn't have such ultrashort-stroke dimensions as the V-IO Jaguar F I engine it' s basicallyderived from -