Aprilia RSV4 Articles
News
RideApart 17: Jamie the manchild
The problem with motorcycle racers is that they grow up in a vacuum. It's all motorcycles, motorcycles, motorcycles and more motorcycles. You can never really rely on them to act their age. Which is why, when one calls and asks if he can borrow they keys to your longterm Aprilia RSV4 "for work" you should be a little more skeptical than I was. Honestly, I can't tell you how many times in the cour...
06 November 2012
Whither Aprilia?
Aprilia turned up at Intermot with little beyond this ’13 model year RSV4. Looks the same, right? It mostly is, but it adds three-mode, switchable ABS and a couple of other useful features that’ll keep it sharp. That ABS was co-developed with Bosch and includes the fitment of Brembo’s new top-drawer M430 calipers and master cylinder. It functions in three, rider switchable modes — Track,...
02 October 2012
The Laguna Seca Pilgrimage: 2012
“We’re gonna ride up to Laguna on Friday,” I shouted out of my helmet. Some guy named Sean that I’d met once and his girlfriend Tammy had run out of gas on their MV Agusta and I’d stopped to see if they needed help. “No highways after Ojai, just canyons the whole way. It’s like a 12 hour day, text Sean Smith.” “Did you invite that Sean guy on the Laguna ride?!” texted Sean Sm...
13 August 2012
Is this the 2012 SBK World Champion?
2012 is going to be a big year for Aprilia Racing. After a definitive Championship in 2010, the team suffered an embarrassing defeat to a privateer rival last year. This is also probably the last year before the 1199 heads to SBK and a year in which Japanese budgets will continue to be low while their bikes remain relatively uncompetitive. These are the bikes Eugene Laverty and Max Biaggi will be ...
15 February 2012
News
An insider’s look at Aprilia Performance Ride Control
Once we’d started putting together a series of videos on the new Aprilia RSV4 APRC, it became quickly apparent that we needed to develop an intimate understanding of how Aprilia Performance Ride Control worked if we were going to stand a chance of doing it justice. Aprilia may have developed the most sophisticated set of performance enhancing electronics ever in-house, but, in typical Italian fa...
19 July 2011
News
A two-wheeled tribute to the Space Shuttle
As motorcyclists, you and I probably have a little more in common with astronauts than the average person. We know what it is to take risks, we know what it means to delicately control a machine on the razor edge of performance and we spend a lifetime perfecting the skills required to do so. Constantly pursuing technical innovation in the name of speed, motorcycle manufacturers have something in c...
08 July 2011
How a dyno measures horsepower
When it comes to superbikes, everyone appears to be very concerned with horsepower. Michael Czysz and Chip Yates go out of their way to make fantastic claims of over 200hp for their motorcycles. BMW claims the S1000RR makes 193 and the ZX10R is supposed to be 197. Even my GSX-R 600 has a claimed 126. But what is horsepower? How do we measure it? And most importantly, why does it matter? What is h...
05 July 2011
News
Aprilia Performance Ride Control explained
For the first time in two-wheeled history, motorcycle performance is no longer being measured merely in power and weight, but also in how closely a rider can come to exploiting the bike’s full potential. New technology is enabling riders to approach or even exceed the limits of motorcycles that are faster than ever before. That’s a reflection of what’s happening on race tracks. Max Biaggi di...
15 June 2011
2011 Aprilia RSV4 R APRC: official images and info
Last week we brought you leaked news that the 2011 Aprilia RSV4 R would be gaining APRC and a few other tweaks. Now we have official info and images. In addition to traction control, launch control, wheelie control and a quickshifter, it gains lighter wheels, new suspension, a 2kg lighter exhaust canister, shorter gearing and even improved fuel mileage. At only a $1,000 premium, what’s not to li...
25 February 2011
Riding the Aprilia RSV4 on The Snake
We’re out in Los Angeles for the month on the pretense of having meetings and doing features, but really we’re here to escape winter and ride some freakin’ bikes. We normally go further afield, to less populated areas to ride fast bikes fast, but figured when in Rome...The Snake, a 2.2-mile section of Mulholland Highway uphill from The Rock Store in Malibu is the most infamously good road in...
14 February 2011
News
Video: Aprilia Performance Ride Control Explained
It came as something of a shock when, in October, the tiny superbike manufacturer from Noale unveiled the most sophisticated set of performance-enhancing electronics ever fitted to a road-going motorcycle. Aprilia Performance Ride Control incorporates an incredibly advanced traction control system as well as wheelie control, quick shift and even launch control. Here, Aprilia walks you through the ...
18 January 2011
2011 Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC SE: can electronics = performance?
The 2011 Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC SE isn’t the first superbike with traction control, but it is the first production superbike with the full complement of SBK electronics: traction control, sure, but also wheelie control, launch control and quickshift. Kevin Ash went to Jerez to find out if a mouthful of acronyms can really translate to improved performance and to see if a tiny European motorcy...
31 October 2010
A carbon-bodied RSV4 Factory and Aprilia Performance Ride Control explained
Take an impressive list of performance-boosting electronic widgets: adjustable traction control capable of self-adjusting to different types of tires, launch control, a quick shifter with bar-mounted buttons and wheelie control, then add all-carbon bodywork and a full Akropovic race system to that package. What do you have? Surely the most technologically advanced and desirable superbike currently...
22 October 2010
News
Aprilia wins SBK World Championship
Winning 10 races and finishing on the podium 14 times this season, Aprilia and Max Biaggi dominated the SBK World Championship. Wiping the floor with rivals prompted other manufacturers to complain that the Aprilia RSV4 was an unfair advantage. Ducati, racing with 200cc more capacity and a long history of SBK rules bent in its favor even cited the RSV4 as one of the reasons it decided to quit the ...
04 October 2010
10 reasons why Max Biaggi won the SBK World Championship
Yesterday at Imola, Max Biaggi won the 2010 SBK World Championship aboard an Aprilia RSV4. When he accepted the trophy he was wearing a t-shirt with a fifth star for this, his fifth World Championship, on the front and 10 reasons for his victory on its back. Here’s those reasons. 1. I've been chasing a fifth star for a long time. 2. I am the first Italian in SBK history to win the world title....
27 September 2010
News
2011 Aprilia RSV4: 186bhp, traction control
A source connected to Aprilia has exclusively revealed to Hell For Leather that the 2011 Aprilia RSV4 will be gaining 8bhp over the 2010 model and a switchable traction control system. That power boost comes courtesy of a slightly increased compression ratio and new timing chains. Other additions include traction control; a new, less ugly exhaust can and revised gearing. Notably absent from the ...
18 September 2010
News
The Aprilia RSV4 could have gone disastrously wrong
This is the Aprilia RSV4 that could have been. Could have been if the original third-party prototype had continued through to production unaltered that is. When Aprilia first gave the RSV4 project the go ahead in 2005, they turned to Robbiano Design to turn their ideas into something physical. Robbiano conceived a two-part magnesium/aluminum frame with a matching swingarm and horrendously awful st...
19 April 2010