Dear Santa

  Alas, the exciting and fun filled weekend I told you about yesterday hit a bit of a snag. The main event involving the first gathering of the clan had to be postponed. However, I wasn't going to let that get in the way of a little spin on the near legendary Aprillia 1100 Tuono Factory. I should point out that the only food I'll be talking about is tonight's supper of an apple and some peanut butter with a sprinkle of salt, so if the joys of life and a bit of tech speak aren't your thing then... 

  But if you're still reading this then you clearly want a sense of what it's like to go beyond infinity on proper scary weaponry. After going through the usual pre-flight checks with the nice man in the shop, I pulled gingerly away feeling very aware that I was liable for the first thousand pounds of any claim if anything was to go awry, and that I was sitting astride a beautiful, purring pussycat with very sharp claws and a very short fuse. Awry was not a place I wanted to go but it didn't feel far away.

  As the shop was in deepest Croydon, I had to go some way to find interesting and empty roads so while I'm bimbling along, I'll tell you a bit about the bike. The Tuono is based on the RSV4, a thoroughbred and very impressive race bike. Aprillia have basically taken off loads of plastic, given it wider handlebars and an upright riding position and it now falls into the class of super-naked, a group of road going race bikes. One advantage is that it's quite happy negotiating traffic, but I didn't sign up for a couple of hours of twatting about amongst meandering cars.

Dirty drugs

  After the initial jitters eased off, I pulled over to set the bike up properly. Because of its race roots, there are plenty of buttons and modes to play with. Track mode, on. Wheelie control, off. Pit lane limiter, don't need that. Launch control, another day perhaps.Traction control, maximum. That should do it, off we go. For someone addicted to performance bikes, the power delivery is unrivalled. I felt like an alcoholic that had been left to look after an off licence and knew that no good could come of this. Then I got to a dual carriageway.

  This is where I got a sense of the strength and purity of the drugs I had been given. While doing ahemcoughsplutter in top, there was still loads of acceleration. This is ridiculous, I thought, as I rolled the throttle on and off feeling a monster surge with every twist, dodging the cars hurtling towards me. I then came across a Ferrari driven by an equally throttle-hungry pilot, keen for a little misbehaviour and I'll leave the rest of that story to your imagination. When I got back to the shop, grinning like an idiot, the nice man wanted to know if I'd been convinced to hand over fifteen grand. No, but it's amazingly tempting and as soon as I've won the lottery...

​​​​​​​  However, instead of feeling depressed as I rode away on Rosie, my twelve year old super-naked, (that's a picture of her above), I realised that though my drugs may be a bit long in the tooth and worth a third of the price of a Tuono, she's got a lot more than a third of the performance and (I think) looks a lot better. Especially when she's clean.

Kirk out

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