APRILIA TUONO V4 1100 FACTORY 4
The undisputed king of the supernakeds only in fourth place? As if things couldn’t get any stranger in these strange times we’re living in, the Aprilia Tuono V4 Factory doesn’t win a naked bike test! What’s going on?
Well, the evergreen Tuono is a victim of nothing more than being on the wrong end of tiny differences and personal preferences. Agreeing on our top four favourite bikes really did come down to a few very small details. The MV, Triumph and BMW were easy to agree on regarding their place in the table, but the Aprilia, KTM, Kawasaki and Ducati were much less so.
Part of the problem why it was so difficult to split the top four bikes is that they all deliver the same fundamental experience as each other but via completely different means. They are stupidly fast, absolutely rammed with tech and have insane levels of performance, and all leave you feeling that little bit inadequate after riding them – that’s a given. However, each of them made us feel differently, which is why we included ‘fun’ as one of the criteria we had to score the bikes against. It was here that the Aprilia fell over compared to the top three, and was the main difference between being on the podium and off it. It’s just a little bit too serious and a little bit too close to the RSV4 it’s based on, right down to the utterly useless steering lock. Where the KTM can do a U-turn in the width of a road with room to spare, the Aprilia doesn’t even get close and requires the “reverse paddle of shame”.
In isolation, it really is one of the all-time greatest motorbikes. It’s so versatile, so comfortable and so unbelievably fast but there is no avoiding the fact that if you jump off it and onto the KTM or Kawasaki, the instant you let the clutch out on either of them, the immediate response is “Oh gosh!” (or words to that effect). The Aprilia just didn’t do that to me whenever I got on it after riding one of the others – and that’s its problem. It’s one of the reasons why group tests are a good thing; they give you the opportunity to try each bike side by side and figure out their strengths and weaknesses in one sitting. As well as giving the bikes a
UP WAKES ENGINE UP WITH ONCE THE SPINNING STARTS AND SIMPLY IT IS PURPOSE, STUNNING.
chance to shine, they also shine a light on the other bikes’ weaknesses that otherwise might not get picked up. As mad as it might sound, that’s what’s happened here.
The Tuono is just that bit lazier and slower to pick up the revs at the bottom end of the range. It feels like there’s a pause between opening the (long) throttle and the revs building and then the revs building meaningfully. It’s not much, but it’s there and it’s enough to create a tiny feeling of detachment between right-hand and throttle bodies that the others just don’t have, which in turn is just enough to take a little bit of gloss off what is otherwise a genuinely brilliant bike.
Once the engine wakes up and starts spinning up with purpose, it is simply stunning at how fast the revs rise and how smooth it is. It’s a masterclass in how to tread the line between a power delivery that’s violent and one that’s as smooth as silk. In many ways it’s the same characteristics you’d want in a race bike – which probably has something to do with why it isn’t quite as engaging or as fun on the road as the others. Race bikes generally have their engines tuned and/or their fuel and ignition maps as such that a lot of torque and power is dialled out in the mid-range, on the assumption that the rider will be mid-corner at maximum lean at those revs... then all hell breaks loose higher
up the revs when the assumption is that the bike will be upright and firing itself down the next straight. The Tuono feels like this, which is brilliant, but also not really what I want on the road from a naked bike – I really want something much more instant. If I wanted a bike with an engine suited to the race track, I’d buy a superbike. But to be fair to the Tuono, a quick look at the marketing blurb on Aprilia’s website even states that the Tuono was “developed on the track but always ready for the road”. This is exactly how it feels and almost certainly why it didn’t get good scores for fun: it’s a serious bike.
Elsewhere, the Aprilia’s chassis set-up is as brilliant as it always has been. For 2021 the Tuono gets a posh underslung swingarm, some very neat wings and the latest Öhlins Smart EC 2.0 electronically controlled suspension which, out of the three, is the one thing that’s actually useful. The suspension is wired into the main ECU that controls all the other adjustable rider aids, including engine power maps, traction control, anti-wheelie, engine braking, launch control, cruise control and that most useful rider aid of them all… a
pit lane speed limiter. It’s got six pre-set riding modes that are really easy – possibly too easy – to switch between. On more than one occasion when swapping bikes, I hopped onto the Tuono only to ride off wondering why the engine felt flat and the suspension soft, just to discover that somewhere in the handover, rain mode had been selected. Press the button to get sport mode and literally every single aspect of the bike changes in an instant. Sharper throttle, more power, stiffer suspension, and all without even having to pull over.
That bikes that can do that these days is simply extraordinary, and if it wasn’t for the fact that this stuff is increasingly more common on bikes, specifically the integration of the electronically controlled suspension, I’d be writing that it is the future. The truth is that the future is already here.
The other bone I need to pick with the Tuono is that it really isn’t a naked bike at all. There’s a bit of the radiator exposed, a bit of one of its hoses, a little bit of one of the barrels... and that’s about it. Everything else is hidden behind plastic.
Very unscientifically, just by staring at it and pictures of an RSV4, I’d say that the Tuono has about 85% of the same bodywork area as the RSV4, but that’s just me being pedantic and a grumpy old man. It doesn’t mean I don’t love what it is; it is beautiful, and the new headlight arrangement brings a freshness to a design that’s been around for a while now. And while the endless amount of adjustable functions that are seemingly impossible to access in any way other than by accident on the massive full colour TFT screen, the combination of them, the new look and the new swingarm has kept what is by far the oldest bike on this test looking younger than it actually is, much like myself.
Aprilia has kept moving the Tuono V4 on since its debut in 2012, long before any of the other bikes in this test were in production and many even thought of as concepts.
It’s easy to forget just how long the Tuono V4 has been around, so the fact that it is still the first bike to go on the list that must be included in our test speaks volumes about just how good it is and how long it’s been that good for.
But it is beginning to show its age alongside the younger pups, specifically with how the engine makes its power.
It’s just a bit too civilised low down and (please don’t hate me) it’s a bit too smooth, and it feels like it is being electronically managed just that bit too much.
I’d love Aprilia to move the available power further down the rev range and sharpen up the throttle a bit to give it some more punch.
The Tuono V4’s only problem is that it set the bar so high for so long that with the passage of time since it was conceived, the class has grown to the point that other manufacturers have joined in with their own interpretation of a supernaked that they will inevitably have benchmarked against the Aprilia until they were satisfied that their offering is better.
The newer supernakeds are also able to do the serious stuff like the Aprilia, but are also better at being bad.
The thing that has been unthinkable for so long has happened and the Tuono V4 has been dethroned… but only just.