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Heading out to Fontana for the double-header weekend of AMA racing, deciding which bike to ride out on was a no-brainer. Sure, there was a stable full of the latest Open Class Sportbikes, but a few days prior, something terrible happened. The day we planned to head out to the drag strip for the final part of our Open Sportbike Shootout, Aprilia's marketing coordinator Robert Pandya winged his way into town. Initially, he was just going to drop off the bike, make nice with us MO boys, and then head back off to do something more important. As it turned out, however, Signore Pandya had some free time and decided to accompany us on our trek over the mountains, through the woods and out to Los Angeles County Raceway that evening. And he was bringing his Mille R with him, with us still mid-flog on our in-line fours, myself on the 954, Johnny Bee on his beloved R1. We all met up (except for young Calvin and the GSX-R who would meet us later at the drag strip) at the base of the 'Crest at a tidy little lunch spot. And after a Sun Valley version of Italian cuisine and a half hearted attempt by yours truly to make nice with a not-so-nice waitress, we were off. Sitting under yon pine tree, the bright yellow Aprilia made its presence known. That too-bright shade accented by flat black touches and some bright reddish-pinkish coloring on the fairing lowers sure looks mahvelous, even from a distance. Up close and personal with the bike, however, it's the details that catch your eye and you pretty much ignore the bright surroundings. Carbon fiber rear fender? Check. Carbon fiber fairing louvers? Yup. There's a c-f dash panel and front fender too, and it's all the real deal. None of that fake stuff here. And that's pretty much how the whole bike is, really. Up front, a closer inspection of things reveals that the forks aren't just gold-colored on some artistic whim, they're from ?hlins. The shock is too, by the way, and it sits just in front of a swingarm that seems fit to be a structural member of a suspension bridge some place. It's a beautiful aluminum piece, part polished and part flat, with the chain running through a cut-out in its starboard side. The Plain Jane version of the Mille uses the same swingarm though, so I guess seeing it on the R isn't as eye-catching as the ?hlins bits that replace the Showa stuff of the basic version. After a few moments spent blabbering on about the bits that make up the Mille R, I not-so-subtley suggested Pandya have a go on one of the other bikes on hand. He'd always been a fan of the in-line stuff, so it was an easy coup, though I had to jump ahead of John to get the Aprilia's key before he did. And so, fired up, Aerostiched up and basically fed-up with mindless yammering, we were off. After only a few miles of less-than straight roads, I remembered why the standard version of this bike won our last Open Twins Shootout: it's such a fundamentally sound machine, and it's terribly easy to ride, too. Over the course of the last few weeks, we've once again fallen in love with big-bore sportbikes. You can do anything on them, go anywhere in reasonable comfort and they're impossibly fast and can make up for a huge talent deficit if you take some time to hone your point and shoot technique. Riding the Aprilia, however, is no point-and-shooter as it's carrying around the same weight as our open bikes while producing nearly 30 horses less. The 998 cubic centimeter motor of this Mille-R sure seems decent enough, though it's the same unit that the standard Mille uses, right down to the fuel/air mapping and exhaust canister. Riding the bike into the mountains I expected to be left for dead as the two other boys left me behind, their right wrists locked in their full, upright position. Thankfully, I thought, the pace was only sporting and not yet hell-bent like I had expected. I was content to sit back and enjoy the bike's excellent wind protection and impossibly narrow feel while we just cruised along. Between the knees the Mille seems no wider than a kid's shoe-box thanks to the beautifully sculpted 4.8 gallon fuel tank. And the motor, though not over-whelmingly powerful, is very smooth for a 60-degree twin, thanks to what Aprilia calls AVDC, which stands for "anti-vibration double countershaft." And the transmission's about as smooth as I can remember on any other twin, too. When we came to a route change and swapped bikes, I was forced to give up the Mille to John. I took back the reigns of our Honda while Pandya-san played with Yamaha's finest. And, shock of all shockers, with his favorite canyon in sight, Burnsie decided he too can win a World Superbike title on the Mille-R. When we pulled to a stop, as I dismounted and removed my helmet, John sat still atop the Aprilia, then slowly turned his head towards me. He said something about "just when you think you've been riding the best bikes on earth you ride something even better." But I wasn't paying attention, really. I just wanted to know how he was able to get 30 horsepower more from the bike than I'd been able to extract only 30 minutes prior. What it is, you see, is what all the factory Superbike and, we recently learned, the Formula Xtreme guys always talk about. It's not just the amount of power, they say, it's the type of power. Wonder why there's all the fuss over four-strokes as a platform for GP racing? Same deal. It's the type of power the bikes make, and this Aprilia, it seems, makes the very usable type and it little matters where the tach needle points. And it doesn't hurt that the bike's chassis is such a brilliant performer, either. or those of you who have suffered through years of stock suspension, we will pray for you because, really, you have no idea how good this ?hlins stuff feels. If you are a sick individual whose pornography is made up of stanchions, seals and stacked shims, here's your swinger's club. In the twisties, the stuff works to keep the Mille superbly balanced on or off the brakes, mid-corner or on the throttle exiting a bend. Nothing short of a giant cedar strewn across the road upsets the chassis. Even on the freeway, where a sportbike rarely shines, I could see myself doing some serious miles on this thing. I thought to myself on more than one occasion, why don't touring rigs use ?hlins? Surely old folks appreciate a smooth ride, too. The beautiful thing about this latest Mille-R, however, is that there's so little fiddling that needs to be done to the bike. In fact, aside from a minor suspension tweak we made after just the first few miles of twisties (the previous magazine tester had the shock's compression and rebound damping backed all the way out), we haven't touched a thing. In fact, we don't plan on touching a thing, except for the exhaust, of course. Ol' Pandya is sending off a pipe and chip to wake things up a bit, power and neighbors, both. Source Motorcle.com
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