Let’s not beat around the bush here: Aprilia’s new Tuareg 660 mid-size adventure bike is a good thing. A real good thing. If you’ve been loving your Ténéré 700 — and a zillion riders all the around the world sure have been — get yourself a ride on a Tuareg and prepare to be impressed. This bike just plain works, and works good.
In fact, it was that good a bike to ride it actually blew me away. Because when you think of Aprilia, you don’t instantly think of adventure bikes, right? Sure, there’s been the Aprilia Caponord and the Aprilia Pegaso, plus the original Aprilia Tuareg thumper way, way back in the day, but none of them went anywhere close to entering the ranks of legendary ADV hardware. Honestly, they were more forgettable than formidable.
To me, Aprilia is a road bike brand that has done bread and butter business with scooters and small-bore road bikes in Europe for decades, while along the way making some absolutely kickass superbike, supersport and GP road race bikes that attracted names like Biaggi, Rossi, Capirossi, Lorenzo, Stoner, Corser and so many more.
The only dirtbike blip on the radar in my Aprilia memory banks are the blazing 450 and 550 RXV (MX/enduro) and SXV (supermoto) V-twins the Italian brand made over a decade ago. My lord, those bikes were nuts! They were snarling, thundering beasts that actually attracted riders of the calibre of Kiwis Josh Coppins (MX) and Stefan Merriman (enduro) to race them in the world championships. Mind you, the fact Aprilia must have thrown some
