There is something unsettling about it.
That moment when you return to the track after long months away, a period that is far too long in which the slider on your leather suit hasn’t tasted asphalt.
And here we are again. Helmet on, armored racing boots fastened, long leather gloves saved for special occasions, and slipping excitedly into the heavy leather suit, happy that it still fits. Swinging a leg over the motorcycle seat and heading out for a lap on the aging asphalt of MotorCity Beersheba, after a dusty desert weekend filled with haze. It almost ended already in the first corner.
The first long double right-hander after the short straight. A slight lean, and the front loses grip and starts to slide. I straighten the bike instantly and continue off the track, trying to calm the pulse that just spiked, and that’s it, the incident is over, everyone is safe. But on the other hand, there was a very clear message here – today there will be no knee on the asphalt.
And that is exactly what makes the track safer compared to the public road. Here you can test your own limits and the machine’s limits with relative confidence, and if you slide you won’t crash into an oncoming car and you won’t be thrown into the abyss beyond the asphalt. A track is the place where you can reach your limits and the bike’s limits, challenge the motorcycle – and here there is one brand where it’s not entirely clear who will challenge whom more.
Aprilia, part of the Piaggio Group, is one of the most desirable Italian brands, carrying a glorious trophy-filled history in road racing. This was an opportunity to get a taste of the range of machines in the toughest place possible to test such bikes – on the track.
Aprilia RS 457 and Tuono 457
Let’s start immediately with the new and intriguing pair that has just landed locally. The two 457 models, the RS (with full fairing) and the Tuono (the naked), are the Italians’ new aces, and first and foremost – before anything else – they simply look fantastic.
They say the Italians believe that “first of all, make it look good,” and indeed these two young lookers didn’t reinvent anything, instead using the same design language as their bigger siblings. In fact, it’s very easy to mistake them for much larger machines. The same red-and-black graphics with the instantly recognizable “a,” the sculpted fuel tank with knee cutouts, the sharp front and raised tail, the low exhaust near the engine that leaves the (red) rear wheel clean, the large single-sided swingarm, and the small front winglets (which, at the modest speeds of this bike, are arguably unnecessary) – all of it designed to make you imagine a “72” written on your helmet and that you are, at the very least, Marco Bezzecchi on the brand’s MotoGP machine.
The components are high quality. A rigid and lightweight aluminum frame, electronic throttle with ride-by-wire, three riding modes, ABS with a Supermoto track mode. Everything is driven by a completely new parallel-twin engine developed at the company’s headquarters in Noale, Italy, while production, as is common these days in this displacement class, takes place in the East, in India.
The first thing you notice is how small the motorcycle is, and above all how light it feels. Against the background of the obesity phenomenon – the excessive weight gain even in the motorcycle industry – this alone brings a smile to your face.
It takes a lot of courage and confidence in the product to bring such modest machines onto a track where throttle-happy riders will repeatedly hit the redline, with relentless acceleration and braking that heat up the brake discs and stress the Indian-made Gabriel suspension with Italian tuning, which felt good. And yet, thanks to the exhaust and the 270-degree crankshaft, this engine doesn’t sound like a sewing machine but rather like a deeper growl. It pulls very nicely from low revs, but the real track party happens above 6,000 rpm, until the limiter starts shouting at you with a pleading red flash on the display at 10,000 rpm saying, “Okay, this time you really overdid it.”
It’s a lively engine that, despite being manufactured in India, feels very Italian – one that loves to rev, to build speed. On the track straight we reached 150 km/h, while top speed is around 190 km/h.
The audience for this motorcycle will mainly be younger, less experienced riders, and this slim Italian knows it well, instilling a lot of confidence in the rider. The ByBre brakes, Brembo’s subsidiary, are sensitive and linear. With no sudden power surprises from the engine, everything is very stable on the straight and doesn’t wobble, and in corners it understands the principle and drops in almost telepathically. It knows how to deliver great fun even to an aging kid who finds himself once again excited, folded into the seat in a race-oriented position, realizing this is a machine that doesn’t feel like a cheap version of something bigger, but rather something refined and well-rounded that gives the feeling of the real thing. A machine that truly loves being leaned over on the track, although if you do this regularly it would be better to fit even stickier Pirelli or Michelin tires instead of the perfectly decent TVS tires that arrive branded with the Aprilia name.
The difference between the Tuono and the RS is the basic one between a streetfighter and a sport bike. On the RS, the handlebars are lower clip-ons, unlike the Tuono’s wider bar that brings a more upright seating position. On the RS, wind protection makes it easier to tuck in at higher speeds, although the modest screen on the Tuono also does a reasonable job. In addition, on both bikes, a passenger in the rear will receive a somewhat questionable experience due to tightly folded legs, although on the Tuono the passenger at least gets a slightly less punishing seat. On the other hand – when you’re young, you’re less spoiled.
So what did we have here. An entry ticket into a wonderful brand with history, heritage, and tradition. A brand that, after about twenty long (too long?) years since the two-stroke 250 days of the early millennium, is returning to fight for the hearts of young riders. Machines that deliver great fun, entering the red-hot A1 segment around the 400 cc category, with the big question being when an adventure model based on this platform will also arrive, a little brother to the Tuareg.
And you can’t do without a few words about the bigger brothers – the Tuono 660 and RS 660 models, which despite looking extreme are pleasant and linear, and with 100 horsepower deliver exactly the right amount of power for what’s needed. We took a few deep breaths of courage before climbing onto the monster, the RSV4, with all the possible technology and above all the 1,100 cc V4 engine, whose acceleration feels like it’s folding the asphalt beneath you. Throttle in a corner makes the huge rear tire fight not to step out too much, while hard acceleration asks to lift the front wheel and aggressive braking threatens to lift the rear. It feels like riding a tiger, an extreme, insane, intoxicating machine, the closest thing to a superbike, to a true race motorcycle. What an experience.
So Aprilia is back again, with a wider range of models, machines with a sporty character and refined Italian looks, ones that are well worth a taste.