FACTORY FUN

What a truly awesome bike the RSV4 is. In guise or another, it’s won seven of the last eight FB SBOTY tests and, in the process, won the hearts and minds of all of us here at Fast Bikes. Over the years, it has been nigh-on perfect on track and pretty bloody good on the road, too. So how do you improve on perfection? Can it be done? Well, Aprilia certainly seem to think so. This, the new RSV4 1100 Factory, has been given some proper saucy upgrades in order to make it, and I quote, ‘the absolute best and fastest uncompromising superbike, the one that comes the closest to the Aprilia racing bikes in terms of performance and effectiveness.’ For starters, it’s now an ‘1100’, and the eagle -eyed readers amongst you will have already spotted the MotoGP inspired carbon fibre winglets grafted to the side of the bodywork. And the even eagle-er eyed will have spotted the also MotoGP inspired, also carbon fibre air scoops on the fork bottoms, directing a cooling blast of air to those big Brembo brake callipers. Top-of-the-range Brembo M50 callipers, I hear you ask? Oh no, these are one better. The Factory comes equipped with Brembo’s new Stylema callipers (the likes we have previously seen on the Ducati Panigale V4 range) and they’re lighter and more efficient than the M50s, which is nice.

Some slightly less obvious upgrades to the RSV4 Factory are subtle tweaks to the full Öhlins suspension set up and the geometry of the adjustable frame. The Öhlins NIX forks have been given another 5mm of travel and the swingarm has been made stiffer, to help keep things tasty on