Cycle News

2016 APRILIA TUONO 1100 RR FIRST RIDE P102 gine—and operates smoothly in conjunction with the RBW/ride by wire throttle. It doesn't cut out the engine or flutter the ignition, just decisively prevents the bike accelerating and breaking trac- tion at rear, with a light on the dash flashing as it does so to tell you you're being protected. At the other end of the scale the S- for-Sport is much less fierce but still lives up to its name, though I liked the intermediate T-for-Track map best for road riding, which still gives you maximum power and torque but with a smoother delivery in all gears, which came in handy especially in the tighter turns and hairpins. But the bot- tom line is that it's impossible to find yourself unable to dial up a combination of engine map and APRC settings to suit the riding conditions and even the mood in which you find yourself, so ver- satile and accommodating—and effective⎯is the Aprilia's elec- tronic rider aids package, even if there doesn't seem to be a reduced power Wet/Road map any more, which is strange. But of course none of that works unless you get the ba- sic engine package right, and Aprilia's chief R&D engineer Piero Soatti [see interview] and his colleagues have very definitely achieved this in further adapting the RSV4 motor for use in the Tuono. In spite of that massive increase in torque, the clutch is light and progressive to use in slow traffic or urban conditions, where the Aprilia will very definitely not cramp up your hand as you constantly work the lever to maintain momentum. This is an exceptionally friendly Superbike-turned-Streetfighter whose V4 motor starts deliver- ing serious performance as the tacho needle hits the 5000-rpm mark, and engine acceleration starts to pick up faster. From 7000 rpm upwards acceleration becomes explosive—it's the only word to use for it—and with peak torque delivered at 9000 rpm, I found that was where the front wheel started to pop up lazily off the tarmac exiting a turn in second gear, and again when >>HOW THEY DID IT Piero Soatti is the leader of the men working behind the scenes at Aprilia's Noale factory to create the Tuono 1100, so the chance to ask him how it came about was too good to pass up. Piero why make an 1100ccc ver- sion of the Tuono? We saw that some of our rivals were presenting a challenge to the Tuono's supremacy in the nakedbike class, so we decided to respond. The main aim was to maintain or improve its effectiveness on track, while at the same time enhancing the riding pleasure on roads. When did you start working on the new 1100cc engine? Not a lot of time ago—maybe just 14 months before the launch. We decided to make it 1100 because we were looking for more torque and more midrange power, so it was a nice spinoff that we had more outright power, too. Our original idea was to put the RSV4 Superbike engine in the Tuono, and we made a prototype to test on the roads. OK, there was more performance, but it was not what we were looking for – it wasn't so much fun to ride on the street, and what we wanted was a bike that could be ap- preciated by riders with many different levels of skill. So we looked at another solution, which is this one. When the RSV4 engine was first designed in 2006, it was always intended that it could go as large as an 81mm bore, but then we made it smaller because the FIM had imposed a 1.5:1 bore-to-stroke limita- As Italian as Pancetta! The Tuono will flatter many a rider's skill level.

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