I had an hour spare at lunch one day in 2007, walked into a dealership and saw 2 brand new Aprilia RSVR Factory 1000 motorcycles (2005 model). The next day finance was approved and I was the proud owner of the bike you see in the pictures, a real Italian beauty. I had never owned a 1000cc superbike before my bike at the time was a Kawasaki KZ400 I had previously owned 2 GSXR 600’s before that, a 1998 GSXR600 SRAD then a 2001 GSXR600 K1.  So this was going…

So how does a quick service before the first ride of the season turn into a 3 year long full strip down of an Aprilia RSVR factory 1000? March 2013 getting ready for an Easter ride out, the bike had been washed (maybe not the most through job ever) and put away after the Christmas toy run, optimate attached. I tend to change the plugs, oil and filters at the start of the season like a lot of people do. This year however things went horribly wrong. I went to…

In the middle of everything else that is going on, I have gone back to university to get a degree in Motorcycle engineering. Apparently this is my midlife crisis, despite a life time involved in motorcycles I have never been involved in the racing scene. I’m a big fan of BSB, WSB, MotoGP and of course the road racing with the likes of the North West 200 and Isle of Man TT. An opportunity presented itself a couple of weeks into the degree course, a racing team came in wanting…

We have established the bike has a few issues, it’s time to strip it right back, clean and fix everything I find. A closer inspection of the loom shows that removal could be tricky, I may have to take the engine out anyway so will leave it where it is until then. Looks like it might take a while (I had no idea how long) to fix all this. I don’t know if any of you have ever really carefully looked at your bike it’s amazing how many places the…

My main motorcycle and method of transport these days is my Aprilia RST 1000 Futura. It’s an amazingly comfortable bike to ride. My only complaint is that at 256KG it is a bit heavy, I am embarrassed to admit I have dropped it a couple of times at low speed because of this. However, this latest incident was a first for me. I was travelling to Oulton Park for a weekends racing with Apex Evolution Racing the University race team. It was a long enough run at 202 miles door…