[Nikon]

oops. crashing a brandy new RSV Factory......video
it's old but still makes me cringe

article
By Yossef Schvetz, 8/20/03
I had a magic moment on the RSV 1000 Erre Factory, oh yes. Drilling through the never-ending, 180-degree downhill Bucine turn, I suddenly realized that I was holding the whole plot with my fingertips. Leaned way over, eyes locked on the turn's exit, I grasped the fact that I wasn't
"Try to avoid crashing into hard, unmovable objects, such as the planet Earth"
gripping the handlebars at all but was rather caressing them, letting the RSV's front end talk to me: "Do you want to tighten up your line mister? Just press the inner handlebar by another 56 grams please. Want to exit nearer the curb? Just release about 105 grams of pressure from the outer handlebar". A nice dialog to be had while you are on your tire's edges, feeling for the last vestiges of traction at 85 mph -- and not one I could recall having on many other rides. So, MOFOs, forget all the Burns-esque heroic tales of valor about powering out of turns with smoking tires on a GSX-R1000, the RSV is into a different type of game: Finesse with capital F, an annihilating finesse that is. The point did not get lost on Aprilia's PR guys. Motto of the New RSV launch was "one second less", meaning that Aprilia testers achieved, on a variety of tracks, lap times that were faster by about one second than the previous model's. Seemingly an honest understatement, less so when you consider the fact that the previous incarnation of the RSV has previously won the coveted "Master Bike" mega sport bike comparo. This year it was second at that test only to the all-mighty Suzook GSXR1000 by about 0.2 of a second.
The story behind the new RSV which now gets the moniker "1000" rather than "Mille" is heavy refinement. Easy to spot is the all-new frame, lighter and torsionally stronger by five percent. Even easier to spot is the double banana swingarm with its extremely tall arms. It reflects current interest in obtaining "controlled flex" and indeed, though torsionally stiffer, it is less so for sideways deformation thus supplying some "sideways suspension" at high angles of lean and thus improving traction control. In terms of dimensions, the steering head has been lowered (for lower height and CG) and re-angled (from 25 to 24.8). Wheelbase has actually increased by 3 mm although overall bike length has been reduced. All this reshuffling has resulted in a perfect 50-50 weight distribution front-to-back with the front wheel carrying 13 pounds more than before.