Growing up in the rural northern Canada - Saskatchewan, it should come as no surprise that I live my life without a lot flair; I prefer sneakers over Italian shoes, steak over pasta and a cold beer over wine. While I have always admired the Italian's passion and ability to build extremely competent motorcycles, there has not been a model that I felt really suited my character or made me feel as though I just had to have one in my garage.  

Well my friends that day has come. Just one look at the Aprilia RSV4R was all it took for me to hang up the sneakers and throw the steak to the dog. No more post race Pabst Blue Ribbon for this guy; I'll have a nice Chianti, grazie.

Ok, maybe the transformation didn't happen quite that abruptly but I must say that many of my opinions have changed thanks to my three weeks with the Aprilia RSV4R. Let's start with the styling. While I have always been impressed with the motorcycle design coming out of Aprilia, the RSV4 is hands down the best looking bike I've seen to come out of Italy. Having said that I was surprised to find how divided people seem to be on the styling. There seemed to be a sort of love it or hate it feeling about the new RSV4R styling when speaking to other riders. Among the non-riding public I came into contact with the comments were almost 100% positive however.

The angular lines of the RSV4 and triangular tail section are quite extreme but it is a look I fell in love with from the first time pictures of the new Aprilia surfaced. The Aprilia RSV4R comes in two different color combinations, black/red or white/black. I would be spending my three weeks on the white one with the black forks.

That's right, not the gold forks which only means one thing. This would be the RSV4R, not the RSV4 Factory.

The paint scheme is quite simple yet it manages to look like a racing machine without having to plaster the bike with dozens of go-fast graphics. The fairings are clean and tidy and the tail section is extremely tiny. The forks are topped off in orange adding just a bit of style to the already impressive front end.

With today's emissions controls there are seemingly very few sexy stock exhausts to be found on modern sportbikes. While Aprilia has done a better job than most, the 4 into 2 into 1 exhaust is still a far cry from being attractive.

Sitting on the new RSV4R you soon find the small size is not an illusion, this is one compact sportbike. While the package as a whole seems to be on par with the smaller 600's, the seating position was not cramped and I instantly felt at home in the cockpit. The only drawback of the small size seemed to be the placement of the mirrors which, on this narrow fairing, were almost impossible to get into a position that was of any real use.