…you also need…
YOU ALSO NEED… Continuing our quest to tell you what you need in your shed, if you’ve got a works Honda RC500 Mxer squeezed in the secure part, then alongside it we suggest you have a genuine works Aprilia trials bike.
… a works Aprilia trials bike to keep it company in the secure part of the shed.
Chance plays a bigger part in features for magazines than people realise – for instance, if I had not decided to track down a Bultaco frame on an internet auction site, I would not have been on hand when this beautiful Aprilia was being unloaded.
Had it not been because I was known to the lad doing the delivery, he would not have rung the owner and asked if I could take these pics with a view to using them in the magazine. The owner, who will remain anonymous, along with the delivery guy, knew of me by chance and agreed to my request.
The trials world has periods of stagnation followed by rapid development and for years the machines were huge single-cylinder four-strokes with rigid rears and girder forks. Then someone tried telescopic forks and suddenly everyone had them. All went steadily for a number of years and then someone tried swinging arms and suddenly everyone had them, the same with two-stroke engines, then foreign machines, but the period of greatest change happened when Yamaha thrust the monoshock rear suspension on the world.
Twinshocks were gone… then came liquid-cooling and disc brakes and all of a sudden we were at the 1989 pinnacle of development – Diego Bosis’ works Aprilia trials bike. Sadly, Diego is no longer with us, taken far too young as a result of a heart attack in 2012, but the Aprilia – a testament to his riding style – is very much here.
With the need for road comfort long consigned to trials history, the factory Aprilia represented the new breeds of bikes and of riders who used them. Bosis finished third in the world on this machine in 1989 before it was retired in favour of the 1990 models. But take a look at the machine – already light in production form, the Bosis Aprilia took lightness to new levels. Out went steel fasteners, in came titanium, solid spindles went onto a lathe to be bored hollow. Aluminium was deemed too heavy for castings, so as much of it as possible was cast from magnesium and so it went on as the mantra ‘a works bike should look like a works bike’ was followed.
Holes appeared in components such as gear levers – nothing is as lightweight as a hole – and other parts that were not suitable for drilling holes in were wasted and reduced until the grams were pared off and so it went on as Aprilia followed what other knowledgeable riders had known for years, lighter is easier to ride… which is why we say you need a works Aprilia in your shed.