2015 APRILIA RSV4 RF
FIRST RIDE
P92
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY MILAGRO
A
prilia's RSV4 sportbike is
a contradiction in terms—
a two-wheeled oxymoron.
On the one hand it proves the
truth of the cliché that racing im-
proves the breed. It's won three
World Superbike Championship
Rider titles and four Manufac-
turer crowns since its debut in
2009, taking the checkered flag
first in over 30 percent of the
World Superbike races staged
during that time. Yet its perfor-
mance in the showroom has
totally disproved the sportbike
axiom of 'Win on Sunday, Sell
on Monday,' with its sales vastly
smaller than those of that other
sporting Italian brand—Ducati.
It's fair to say the Aprilia Su-
perbike is the best kept secret
in the present day motorcycle
marketplace.
The fact the street RSV4 is
such a fine motorcycle that has
invariably won most multi-bike
magazine shootouts everywhere
except Germany in recent years,
makes this all the harder to
understand. But Aprilia's own-
ers, Piaggio, have kept faith
with the model—and with racing
it. Instead of consigning it to
the scrapheap of history, it has
invested substantial resources
in comprehensively revamping it
for 2015.
The new RSV4 RR and the
500-unit-only RF (basically the
old Factory version) both come
with Öhlins forks, shock and
steering damper and forged
aluminum wheels, and both now
APRILIA'S WORLD CHAMPION LOOKS LIKE
IT'S GONE ONE BETTER FOR 2015, A YEAR
THAT WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS A
MILESTONE FOR SUPERBIKE DESIGN.
THE BEST
MADE BETTER?
