It's Happy! It's Fun! It's Happy Fun Bike!

by Mike Solis
from the November issue of CityBike Magazine

Remember "Happy Fun Ball" from Saturday Night Live? I like to think of the Aprilia Tuono as the modern day version of it - Happy Fun Bike. To ensure the safety of its users, Happy Fun Ball came with a number of different warnings. I've found many of the same warnings apply to Happy Fun Bike as well.

Happy Fun Bike may accelerate to dangerous speeds.

Would you expect anything less? After all, the Tuono does possess the same motor as its World Superbike Championship predecessor, the Aprilia RSV-R Mille. With almost 120 horsepower and 75 foot pounds of torque slugging away in a rhythmic fashion that only a 1000cc V-Twin can deliver, the Tuono has some serious thrust. The chassis is nothing short of rock solid, as a direct descendant of the same Mille chassis that put legends like Troy Corser on the top step of the World Superbike podium. A ride on the Tuono may have riders laughing and giggling, but the Tuono is no joke - there's some serious kit between those massive aluminum frame spars. Couple that frame and motor combo with some 43mm Showa inverted forks and a beefy swingarm, and you have a chassis that happily handles just about anything you can throw at it.

Happy Fun Bike may endanger your state of employment.

With 20 or so miles of twisty mountain backroads between my residence in Berkeley and my workplace in Concord, I couldn't help taking the scenic route to and from work, every chance I had. When I was lucky, it resulted in me arriving "just in the nick of time." Usually, I wasn't so lucky.

The Tuono just begs to be flogged mercilessly on backroads every chance it gets. If it isn't the most capable scalpel for backroad surgeons, it's definitely one of the most entertaining. The speed with which it's able to go from full left to full right is almost alarming, especially for a bike of its size. I had trouble believing it was essentially the same machine as the Mille, which I had ridden on the same roads just a year earlier. Not that the Mille was difficult to wrestle through corners, but on the Tuono I found myself turning the bike just far too quickly, forcing me to correct and change my line on numerous occasions.

While I've long been an advocate of the Pridmore body steering technique, the Tuono has shown me there's something to be said for countersteering. The high, wide bars gave me the leverage to snap the bike into bends almost faster than I could think. As a result, I had heaps of fun experimenting with the whole Keith Code countersteering technique, using the sheer turning speed of the bike to negotiate my way around technical backroads. With my aggressive steering inputs making the forks pump up and down like a male porn star going for the money shot, my riding was anything but smooth. Regardless, snapping the Tuono through bends and throttling it out of tight corners had me giddy with laughter.

Excessive use of Happy Fun Bike may result in mood swings, loss of good judgment, and potential loss of driving privileges.

Not that mood swings are necessarily a bad thing. Rough day at work? Ride the Tuono. Relationship problems? Ride the Tuono. Problems with your driving record? Kick back, have a beer, and watch Faster, the Movie - given the hooliganistic tendencies of the Tuono, you probably want to stay away from it in those circumstances. Either way, everyone I know who has test ridden a Tuono has walked away with an ear-to-ear grin - who wouldn't want that kind of mood swing?

Even the most skilled, experienced riders can't help but smile after a ride on the Tuono. Numerous motojournalists who have spent tens of thousands of miles on other bikes claim the Tuono to be the most fun machine they have ever ridden. I asked one of the top local racers if he had ever ridden a Tuono. He responded, "Dude. That is a seriously FUN bike." Now, it's one thing for a pencil-pushing cubicle dweller to tell me how much fun the Tuono is. But when a guy who spends most of his time on a 200 horsepower rocketship says it, you can't help but wonder - how much fun is the thing?

The Tuono also did a great job of skewing my judgment. The bike just encourages lunacy and hooliganism in so many different ways - a combination of the character of the bike and the high seating position. Every onramp was a chance to bring the front end up (the stock gearing was a little high for my poor attempts at stoplight wheelies), while every turn on a city street was a chance to get the bike sideways with the rear wheel locked. It's my thinking that the Tuono's high, upright seating position allows its riders to look down on the world of race replica riders and silly traffic laws, and encourages them to act accordingly. It's a world of hooliganism, where high seats and higher bars reign supreme, once inhabited only by street fighters and supermotards. Then along came the Tuono - the prize of all fighters, and mother of all 'tards, and the hooligan of hooligans.

Things that were, ah, not so good...

My list of nitpicks starts with one of the things that make the Tuono so much fun to ride to ride in the first place - the dirtbike handlebars. The same bars that gave me the leverage to snap the bike from side to side also made me struggle initially with aggressive corner entries. It probably has more to do with my roadracing-derived riding style than any shortcomings of the Tuono. On supermotards or adventure tourers with similar high bars, I often found myself waddling into corners that others would drag pegs through. I struggled in the same way on the Tuono at first, as it took time to trust the front end without being able to get much weight on it. I often ran a little wide on corner exits as well, since uncorking the 70 some-odd foot pounds of torque raked the front end out in a hurry. I'm usually a perfectionist when it comes to riding, but the Tuono makes sloppy riding fun. Whether it's poor lines, poor technique, or ill-advised use of things like curbs, gravel patches, or sidewalks to make the ride more "interesting" - the Tuono is an adventure every time I throw a leg over it.

I didn't mind the minimal wind protection at first. In actuality, the wind protection by the bikini fairing probably rivaled that of an R1 - but with the high bars putting me into an exposed, upright seating position, the wind blast was something I had to constantly deal with at freeway speeds. It was sort of neat at first, with the exposure to the elements adding to the raw feel of the bike. It also seemed to skew my sense of speed. Everything just seemed a little bit faster than it actually was. Peeking at the speedometer often showed my speed to be 10 mph slower than I thought. It almost made up for my law breaking hooliganism - or at least my poor attempts at it. But before long, summer became fall, cool became just plain cold, and I was left wanting a little more wind protection than the Tuono could provide.

The tall stock gearing also caught me a little off guard. While cruising in sixth gear (at legal speeds) on the interstate, the motor almost felt on the verge of stalling. On some stretches, even fifth gear. The motor pulled it when you asked it to, but cruising along just a few thousand rpm past idle was a little disconcerting. On the other hand, that could be how Aprilia chose to deal with the gas guzzling reputation of 1000cc twins - 120 freeway miles until reserve on the Tuono seemed pretty standard.

The same gearing made my attempts at one-wheeled hooliganism a bit tricky as well. It came up in first at low speeds, but it took fistfuls of throttle to do it. With 120 horsepower on tap, a motor with a hell of a top end kick, and my feeble wheelstand skills, my ingrown fear of "I think it's coming up" turning to "I hope insurance covers this" kept my right wrist in check. With one fewer tooth on the countershaft sprocket, hooliganism would have been so much easier, and grins so much larger. The Tuono fell a little short of my expectations in that respect, with so many describing how the front wheel pawed at the air coming off of every corner. A gearing change would be a necessity if the bike were my own - not only would it add to the already high fun factor of the bike - it might also make fifth and sixth gear usable at legal speeds! Seriously, is gearing that high really necessary? Who is going to try and go 150 some-odd miles per hour with that bikini fairing? On the Tuono, shorter gearing just makes sense.

Then there's the seat of the bike. The more miles I logged, the more I hoped either it or my ass would somehow break in a little, making things a bit more comfortable. It never really happened, and I'd probably replace it with a Corbin or similar aftermarket item if it were my own. The passenger seat was another story! The ridge in the center of the seat looked interesting at first, almost giving the tail of the bike an angular, aggressive look. One ride with a female passenger verified that the ridge did more than just look good, sending the throbbing sensation of the 1000cc v-twin motor right to her most sensitive spot. I'm tempted to say "Only in Italy" - but after seeing online video clips of some "interesting" Japanese fetishes, I'm surprised that little feature wasn't seen earlier in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Bottom Line

In many ways, the Aprilia Tuono just doesn't make sense. It's basically just a stripped down RSV Mille with dirtbike handlebars. Yet its appeal stretches beyond fans of traditional streetfighters, as it never fails to get looks when parked groups of sleek supersport machines.

It isn't exactly a featherweight, at 440 pounds without fluids. It's not a physically small machine, nor is it low to the ground with a seat height of 32 inches. But somehow, it feels like it turns in and changes directions faster than anything short of a two-stroke GP bike.

I consider myself a practical bike owner. Without the bags of money that Bay Area techies typically have, my choice of bikes is limited. I traditionally look for well-rounded machines, daily commuters that double as long distance sport tourers, with some fun factor sprinkled in for good measure. Wind protection is good. Fuel range is better. And I was never big on wheelies (unless the bike was borrowed). But after my experience on the Tuono, I've found myself looking for ways to somehow get one of my own.

People buy bikes for lots of reasons these days. Some people need the latest and greatest. Others are a little more practical about their purchases. And then there are those who love them they are just plain fun. It's the reason most people started riding in the first place, as well as the whole the rationale behind riding and owning a Tuono.

Happy Fun Bike - the motorcycle sensation that's sweeping the nation. Get yours today - I would if I could!

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