Aprilia Tuono 1000R

Review

The Max Factor

Only ten examples of Aprilia's exotic Tuono R have made it Down Under. One's already been written off, but that didn't stop the owner of #216 throwing Boris the key and pointing him at The Ox...

"Holy sainted buggery" is the only honest way to describe what happens when you twist the Tuono R's panties in fourth at 6000rpm. And on a moist and empty Oxley Highway it is not only honest, but totally justified.

How I came to be blaspheming behind the tapered golden bars of one of the world's rarest and most stunning motorcycles was entirely due to Brother Silverback. Blasphemy and him just seem to go together.

And it was his bike.

The fact that it was his bike was firmly on my mind as I shifted into fifth at 8000rpm - well before its 10,500 redline and a bit before the owner-settable shift-now-stupid light flashes - and profaning God gave way to plain old swearing.

Legal advice prevents me from telling you how fast I was actually going at this stage, as does the fact that in daylight, the only thing you can see on the digital speedo and analogue tacho is a handsome reflection of the top bits of the front-end.

Sixth was the next gear (and utterly useless for accelerating from anything less than 180km/h), but I was running out of straight road and balls by now. I eased off and peered into the mirrors to see if Brother Silverback was serving it to my Speed Triple in a like fashion.

He wasn't too far behind (I'm so kind), and as he caught up, I could tell by the way he was shaking his head he was enjoying the unique thrill of watching me having sex with his bike, whilst going very fast on my fully-laden, worst-seat-in-the-world Speed Triple. Life can be a rough passage at times, can't it?

NAKED RELATIONS
And speaking of rough, Sir Alan, who tested the Tuono R in AMCN (Vol 51 No 24) in said, "...the only Nakedbike competitor the Tuono relates to is the latest Triumph Speed Triple with the 955i Daytona engine..." and he's roughly right. The Tuono R relates to the Speed Triple like an 18-year-old roughly kicking the crap out of his 10-year-old brother.

Sure, the two bikes are indeed remarkably similar in many ways, but the differences are just as remarkably vast.

A $21,990 Aprilia Tuono Fighter and the $16,490 Speed Triple... well, that would be an altogether fairer fight. But the $31,995 Tuono R has no equal. It is about as serious and exclusive a weapon as you could ever want.

Remember, this is a stripped-down 130ps Aprilia Mille R. It's not detuned, emasculated, or poncified. In fact, it's 2kg lighter and hugely sexed-up in an orgy of carbon-fibre, illegal titanium race pipe, OZ wheels, Brembos and Pirelli Dragon Corsas as... shudder... standard fitment.

Öhlins gold shines among the bizarre shapes of the carbon-fibre paneling, and the Swedish suspension god's goodness and mercy is manifested in all its glory each time you ride.

That's some 'standard', huh? Triumph should weep in shame.

ASTOUNDING EFFECTIVENESS
The road effectiveness of this type of motorcycle package just cannot be anything but astounding. Where you point it, it will go. Pretty much at whatever speed you pick and at whatever damn rate of acceleration your heart desires.

True, the wind pressure smashing you in the head at all those silly speeds can be rather invigorating. And when your neck starts to cramp from fighting wind-force, it is possible to tuck down behind the tiny little fairing a tiny little bit. Do this if you're going to get serious about seeing where the top-end is. The factory claims 250km/h. It's probably right.

Theoretically speaking, if 6000rpm in fourth is about 180km/h, then 8000 in fifth is somewhat quicker and redlining it in sixth would be an act of madness and purity. I sure as shit couldn't do it.

The Tuono R is a very highly-geared twin, so if you want to experience psychopathic rates of getting from, say, 100km/h and 180km/h (very handy and safe for overtaking, provided you're paying attention to just how hard this thing accelerates) it pays to use third and fourth with a will. W hich is what I immediately started doing as The Ox began serving up some rather tight-ish stuff at Mount Seaview.

BIG-BORE CRACK...
Brother Silverback may well have started sawing away at the Triple's gearbox himself then, but all I could hear was the incredibly powerful, big-bore machine gun crack of the Tuono R's exhaust... and I began to curse yet again.

Because this was all a bit overwhelming. I had never ridden anything remotely this... well, precise, I suppose. The overkill in the integrity of its components is staggering - but so, so nice to have.

The only thing that wobbled on the Tuono was me. And that was entirely due to the wind and the screaming fear that I'd bin it on some shifty, damp bend or smash into one of them beaut beef cows grazing by the side of the road.

We'd just ridden through three herds of the drought-stricken swine, one of whom attacked Brother Silverback when I accidentally pulled in the Tuono's fabulous slipper clutch and revved it like a thoughtless dog. He survived only because the Speed Triple is such a magnificent bike, as I later told him. And it's completely replaceable in case of DEBCOC (Death By Cattle Or Corner) - unlike Tuono R #216.

TRUE LIES
By now I knew that every bike mag I'd read about the Tuono R lied when it said only 200 of them were made. But I'm told there were ever only 10 of them imported into Australia, and NSW got three of them.

One of them is already dead, written off on the Old Pacific Highway. The second one is sporting a set of fabulous Akrapovic pipes and has been seen lurking with intent around twisty bits of bitumen. The third is Brother Silverback's and now happily in my, errr, control on a damp Oxley Highway.

I think the only other person to ride it apart from him (and now me), was the mechanic who registered it and he was no doubt killed shortly after.

Brother Silverback sacrificed mightily to get the Tuono. He loves it deeply. The man took two motorcycles - a brand new BMW RS and a near-new ZX-12R to Tom Byrne Motorcycles and refused to leave the showrooms until they were taken from his sight and replaced by "That bike there. On the altar. With the Not For Sale sign. The one with the light of Heaven shining on it and being swallowed by the matt blackness of its paint. Give it unto me."

So you can probably understand that there was really no way I was about to explore the Dark Side on it. And quite frankly, I'm simply not capable of riding the Tuono R anywhere near the edge of its design parameters.

INGLORIOUS ENTRY
But what glorious parameters they are! A good deal more glorious than my entry into the first of many, many wicked 45km/h (and slower) bends The Ox now presented me with. Up until now, it had been fast-ish sweepers followed by see-for-miles straights with three separate herds of cattle to keep your nipples hard. Now it got bendy with a vengeance.

I glanced quickly at the mirror but the Triple was hidden by the bend I'd just botched. My reputation thus intact, I figured it would probably be wiser to stop just hoping I wouldn't trowel it and actually make a concerted effort not to. I stopped riding 'on' the Tuono and began riding 'in' it.

The reward was instantaneous. The moment I started applying myself to the task, the Tuono bequeathed me some of the most satisfying kilometres of my life. Sure, I mangled the odd line, braked too late or too much, but mostly I got it right. Which is really more of a testament to the Tuono than my skill as a rider.

It sure likes to be ridden with meaning, I thought, giving thanks yet again for that fabulous slipper clutch as the Tuono banked itself into corner after corner while I tramped through second, third and fourth like the Germans through Poland - efficient, ruthless and singing loud songs.

I also briefly wondered if Brother Silverback would take my Triple bush somewhere behind me, but then considered the implications of that (shame, pain, broken trees, wailing women, blood... you know the deal) and put it from my mind.

The big fella's one of the best riders I've ever seen. He can and does paste up the tyres when he's so moved, but he picks and chooses when and where that is. He is immune to peer pressure.

Me rocketing off into the distance doesn't always lure him out for a hot lap, but when it does, he will ride me down like a dog even if it takes 100 kilometres of insanity to do so.

TAKING PITY
We finally pulled over at the lookout which sits a few kilometres before the legendary Traveller's Rest pub at Long Flat to take some photos. I then made the grievous error of taking pity on him. I gave him back his bike so that at least he'd get to do the final fast, swoopy rush to Wauchope and Port Macquarie.

Happily, Brother Silverback doesn't take pity lightly. Leaving the lookout before me, he subjected me to a crazed half-hour chase into Port Macquarie Which, at the end, left me with no option but to rob servos and pubs until I can Öhlins up the Triple and fit it with Valentino Rossi's race engine.

Later that afternoon, as we sat in a pub at Port Macquarie, I told him what was wrong with his bike.

"The sidestand is too short and pitched too steep," I said.

"It has yet to fall over," he intoned.

"I can't see the instruments in daylight."

"You don't need to," he grinned. "They're only worth looking at in the dark." "It's very thirsty. Each time we fill up the bikes, yours takes two liters more than mine and I'm carrying 50kg of crap."

"It's very fast," he said calmly. "It deserves more petrol. And it's not crap, it's Slivovitz."

FLAWLESS LOGIC

His logic was flawless. I'd run out of stuff to bellyache about and sculled my beer in silence.

"Obviously it is now possible to build a bike this good," Brother Silverback said after some moments.

"Obviously," I nodded.

"So why is that only Aprilia cares enough to do so?"

"Why indeed," I muttered, wondering how much money there'd be in the pub's till that evening...