If you were to ask a group of random people what they thought a Sport Bike was all about, the majority would respond with some kind or comment about speed, power or performance. For most these bikes are an endless search for lap times and eking out every ounce of what is possible with modern…
Right here we have an interesting dilemma. Race bikes are definitely cool, but used machines really need to have some star power and proven history to have value. Track day bikes – also known as hacked street bikes – are relatively cheap but usually thrashed pretty hard. Brand new race-spec bikes are rare, and nearly…
“A man’s got to know his limitations,” Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry famously deadpans in Magnum Force, a film which happens to feature several Italian motorcycles, none of which are an Aprilia RS250 like this Cup Challenge bike. The decision-makers at Aprilia must have been fans of Clint Eastwood though, as they took that advice to…
Not every exotic needs to try and tear your arms out as soon as you twist the throttle, and not every rare motorcycle needs to cost a packet to buy or run: sometimes our need to be just a little bit different clashes with life’s practical considerations. For riders in that particular situation, may I…
The Aprilia RS250 was the first two-stroke I actively lusted after. Keep in mind that I grew up in an era when two-strokes, at least here in the US, were basically found in off-road bikes and really annoying yard-care equipment. Not really the sexiest of associations. I still think that the sound of a two-stroke…
Here on RSBFS we normally start our posts with a full profile pic of the bike but I just had to break with tradition and start this post with a pic of the sweet carbon arrow dual pipes and the banana swing arm. Can you guess what they are attached to? If you guessed/knew that…
Forty some-odd years into Aprilia’s history they added road racing to their off-road program, with remarkable results – ten 125cc championships and nine in the 250cc class. Bold names from this year’s Moto GP grids like Valentino Rossi, Marco Melandri, and Jorge Lorenzo all were 250cc champions for Aprilia. Built from 1995 through 2002, the…
Much has been written about the little Aprilia RS250 on this site, about its “GP machine for the masses” character and handling, and its snarly little two-stroke v-twin borrowed from the Suzuki RGV250 and revised for improved power. Introduced in 1995 and produced in several iterations that were road-legal up until about 2002, the RS250…