The first session had been horrible, but this was fantastic fun. The rain was coming down quite hard now, and the slippery Misano track had already seen three crashes this morning. But as the RSV4 tipped smoothly into the turns, drove through with a guttural V4 growl, and then catapulted towards the next bend with a stirring howl, the speed and poise of Aprilia’s new challenger was thrilling despite the conditions.
This was the upmarket Factory version of the Italian firm’s new super-sports flagship, and the name was well deserved. The production RSV4 was managing – with its looks, its agility, its suspension control and sheer power – to give a flavour of the works V4 on which Max Biaggi has shaken up the established players in the first weeks of the World Superbike season.
It shouldn’t really have been a surprise to anyone that Aprilia would be so competitive so quickly on the track, or that the 180bhp production RSV4 would be mighty good to ride. After all, the Noale firm is part of the Piaggio Group that is Europe’s biggest bike company. More than three years and 25 million euro have been invested in this project, after starting with a blank sheet of paper.
“Our goal was clear,” Piaggio’s director of motorcycle engineering, Romano Albesiano, had said last night. “We wanted to build the fastest motorcycle on the racetrack, for use on track and road. There were no limitations, no constraints. We were free to choose the engine layout and the chassis. We wanted to make the most compact super-sports bike ever built, and we did it in a unique way: by combining the work of two teams, the engineers of the R&D department and the race department.”
Aprilia’s history also pointed to the RSV4 making an immediate impact. Back in 1998 the original RSV Mille V-twin, the firm’s first-ever superbike, was a fine roadster although it never turned World Superbike race wins into a championship victory. This new bike’s links to the V-twin include its trio of headlights and aluminium beam frame layout. But this all-new V4 is very different – lower and more compact, as well as more stylish.
The dozen RSV4s poking from the Misano pit garages had cut through the early morning gloom. Miguel Galluzzi, creator of Ducati’s Monster and now head of Piaggio’s design team, has given the V4 a unique and aggressive look. The sharp lines of the cut-down fairing and sculpted tailpiece are reflected in the upswept black silencer. The aluminium frame spars are smooth and polished. Classy, typical Factory-spec touches include Öhlins suspension, Brembo radial Monoblocs and forged Marchesini wheels.
There’s nothing particularly unusual about the view from the rider’s seat, which is quite low and slim (although luxurious compared to the razor-blade that a pillion passenger gets to sit on). Clip-on bars bolt to 43mm forks whose gold-and-blue tops jut through the cast top yoke. A low screen gives a view of the digital display. But there was definitely something special about the way the motor came to life with a raw, raspy V4 sound through the four-into-one exhaust, revving urgently as I blipped the throttle.
Being tall, I was glad to find that despite the bike’s compact dimensions it didn’t feel cramped. But I wasn’t glad about the weather. Aprilia had gambled by holding the launch in north-eastern Italy, and had been rewarded by rain. The standard Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SP tyres had been replaced by softer-still racing wets, but I still didn’t enjoy relearning the slippery circuit, especially after one guy had crashed on the opening lap.
The bike was not to blame for that. To suit the conditions, Aprilia’s technicians had suggested setting the three-way injection map to the S for Sports position, the middle of the three. This is easily done, using the starter button while the motor is running. The T for Track setting gives max power in all gears; S smooths delivery and cuts max output in the lower three ratios; and R for Road flattens the torque curve and limits output to 140bhp at all times.
With the Sport setting selected, the V4 was fabulously flexible and sweet-revving. The close-ratio box’s first gear is tall, so I was splashing round the tighter bends with the revs dropping below 5,000rpm. Yet the Aprilia picked up sweetly as I cautiously opened the ride-by-wire throttle. The engine note was initially gravelly; a touch of vibration briefly came through the footrests…then the sound rose in pitch and the motor smoothed as the bike stormed down the straight, kicking harder at about 8,000rpm and hurtling towards the next turn.
On the wet track I was happy to leave the engine in S mode for almost all my three sessions. A brief test of the Road setting was enough to suggest that its gentler delivery might be useful occasionally. There was certainly not enough grip to allow any advantage from the Track setting’s full power in the lower gears, so I left that for another day.
Even in the dry there would have been no room at Misano to get close to the Aprilia’s near-300km/h top speed, but the bike was into fifth in the generally sweet-shifting box, and still pulling hard (no time to glance down at the digital speedo) on the main straight. That’s despite it having to cut through the wind and rain with my unaerodynamic body increasing the bike’s tiny frontal area despite my efforts to hide behind the low screen. The RSV4 certainly felt seriously fast – just how fast it is remains to be seen.
Full analysis of its handling ability will also have to wait, because the track didn’t dry out. It’s ironic that the RSV4 has the most comprehensively adjustable chassis ever seen on a production streetbike – giving the option to change steering geometry, ride height, swingarm pivot point and even engine position – but the weather meant that I didn’t adjust even its suspension.
Instead I was happy that the front and rear Öhlins units were reasonably soft and very well damped, and gave good feedback in conjunction with the super-soft Pirellis. Misano’s relatively recent change to run anti-clockwise has resulted in a couple of tricky, decreasing-radius right-hand turns that put emphasis on front-end grip. So it was just as well that the RSV4 steered with a light and neutral feel that made direction changes easy.
I hadn’t expected to enjoy splashing round in the wet, even so. But during my second session the bike felt so precise, controllable and sweet-handling that I was having a great time despite the rain. I was cornering faster, leaving my braking later – glad that the Brembo Monoblocs gave plenty of feel, as well as stopping power – and winding on the gas earlier and harder out of the turns.
Then I had a biggish rear-end slide exiting the same second-gear left-hander that had seen a Greek rider high-side in the previous session. Clearly even this most rider-friendly and poised of bikes could easily exceed its limits. By mid-afternoon seven riders had crashed. Our final session was cancelled amid fears that Aprilia would run out of bikes for the following day.
So the RSVR Factory’s debut ended inconclusively, and the V4 still has work to do to show that it can be as competitive a production bike as its works-racer variant has shown it can be in World Superbikes. Perhaps Aprilia will give the Factory traction control, to compete with Ducati’s similarly priced 1198S, after introducing the cheaper RSV4-R model (with Showa springs, cast wheels and probably a simpler, non-adjustable frame) that is expected in about six months’ time.
Despite the weather and the crashes, though, the Factory had done enough to suggest that Aprilia’s second major assault on the open-class superbike market will be even more successful than the first. The competition is hotter than ever this year. But the RSV4 was mighty good in the rain, and will surely be better still in the dry. The superbike world has a very serious new challenger.