Aprilia RS250

...6 months with a 1995 Aprilia RS250.

I am not going to bother going through the specs - you can get that info from numerous websites. When reading reviews it is important to understand what the product is like to live with on a dialy basis and find out what it does well and what it doesn't do so well. so.......................

I bought one just for a bit of fun over the summer months - and what a big mistake it was.
...handling is phenomenol. It is just so light and flickable that twisty roads are a pleasure. The tyre stick like the provrbial to the shovel and the engine just wants to be revved. The harder you thrash it the more it likes it. It just screams and screams, and....screams.

The RS is hard work to ride and requires thrashing. It's lack of power (it is only 250cc after all) means that if you go in to a corner in the wrong gear, or go in ... more

I thought I had better share my brief affair of 6 months with a 1995 Aprilia RS250.

I am not going to bother going through the specs - you can get that info from numerous websites. When reading reviews it is important to understand what the product is like to live with on a dialy basis and find out what it does well and what it doesn't do so well. so.......................

I bought one just for a bit of fun over the summer months - and what a big mistake it was.

Riding the RS gives you horns, the handling is phenomenol. It is just so light and flickable that twisty roads are a pleasure. The tyre stick like the provrbial to the shovel and the engine just wants to be revved. The harder you thrash it the more it likes it. It just screams and screams, and....screams.

The RS is hard work to ride and requires thrashing. It's lack of power (it is only 250cc after all) means that if you go in to a corner in the wrong gear, or go in too hot and lose the speed (and the revs) then you'll have to cog it down to second and wring it's neck through the gearbox once more. This is part of the RS's charm.

The RS is a total wheely machine - even if you don't want to. Red lining it in first and second wii get the front wheel in the air, especially if you lean back - even a little. In fact, to keep it down you have to ensure that you keep your weight over the front in the first two gears. Although wheelies are cool and a crowd pleaser the coppers don't like them (as I found out!)

Ever since my days on an AR50 I have loved the smell of two stroke oil, especially with a little Castrol R put in for good measure. Riding an RS you will smell 2 stroke ALL the time, believe me. Nice if you like it, but if you are going to visit someone, like your grandmother for example, it is not a pleasant smell to those who don't like it.

If the conditions are right then the RS is fine. However, a bit of wind and the RS is even harder to ride. A head wind decreases the speed and acceleration enormously. The little 250cc engine cannot cope with it - at all.

Another area where the RS will lose out is on larger roads. A prime example is the A149 in Norfolk (where I come from). Going from Stalham to a village called Potterheigham there is a long stretch of fast road with sweeping bends and long straights. On a 'perfect' day I was riding down this road, just enjoying the experience. I came up behind a Saab 93. The Saab decided he wanted a bit of a race and put his foot down (I have never understood the mentality of car drivers that do that... Sitting at 50mph and then once a bike comes up behind them they decide to floor it if there is no traffic..why?) any way, the Saab took off and I followed it. The Saab decided to call it a day and indicated my past it. I pulled out from behind it in to the wind and the bike lost power, I cogged it down two gears (you always had to do this when over taking) and gave it a fistful.

I 'crept' alongside the Saab. The driver looked at me and I looked at him. There was me in the racing crouch trying to ensure that as much air as possible would flow over me so that I could get past this car. The driver shook his head, grinned and braked to let me past. I had never been so humiliated.

Everyone I have spoken to reckons that the RS is good for 130mph. I am very sceptical. I managed to get mine to 115mph on a 'run what you brung' drag day at a disused runway. Maybe mine was mechanically crap? Maybe my 13.5 stone body was too heavy? I don't know.

What makes me laugh even harder is when the 17 year olds say that their RS125 s will crack 120mph. I have tried and tried to get a ride on one of these 'super quick' bikes but the owners never let me ride it. There is no way that a standard RS125 will do 120mph - so if you are a 16 or 17 year old reading this review and think you are going to get a rocket ship then you will be disappointed. Don't get me wrong the RS is a fast bike..... but let's get real here.

Back to the RS250....................

So it is great fun to ride, easy to wheelie and smells nice.... what is wrong with it?

Where do I start? 2 strokes are notoriously unreliable. I knew that before I bought it but I thought that I would not have to do anything major to it for a year. How wrong I was.

I am not mechanically minded. All of my bikes have been maintained by a man in the next village who had worked in a motorcycle shop since he left school before starting up on his own. He races RGV 250s and is a whizz with 2 strokes. I took my bike to him for a 'look over'. When I went to see the verdict the list of things wrong was as long as my arm. And whilst this bloke made it proper (extracting bits and pieces from his spares collection (the RS uses the RGV engine) and charging me trade price) the bill was nearly a grand! I had only paid £1,500 for the bike in the first place.

Unfortunately that was not the last time I had to use the services of my mechanic - he became very, very familar with my RS.

When the RS was running it was a lovely machine. Unfortunately this was only 20% of the time. I couldn't ride far from home as I was always fearing it would break down. I couldn't ride and stop off anywhere (such as at the White Swan - a Bikers haunt in Great Yarmouth on a Friday night) for fear that I could not get the RS started again. I used the RS purely for letting off steam and back road scratching, avoiding the larger roads as much as I could.

I looked on several forums and websites and found that other RS owners had exactly the same issues I did. I now understand why most owners do not use them on the road - they are used for clubmans racing and track days only.

If you are mechanically minded and your idea of fun is to own a bike and maintain it yourself, and you like getting your hands dirty (and spending lots of money on spares in the process) then the RS is for you. Unfortuantely I am not one of those people. I like to know that when I press the button (or in the case of the RS kick the kickstart) the bike is going to fire in to life and I can go anywhere on it, and know that it will get me home.

I ended up selling (well giving away) my RS. I was advertised it in the Freeads. And even being 100% honest about the reliability I could have sold that bike 20 times over. Even now I don't know how much that RS cost me in 6 months. I have never tried to work it out since I know I will need to go and get some Prozac straight afterwards.

The RS is now a classic, maybe even an icon, and as with all icons the RS is best left as a " I would have loved to own one of those" bikes. Don't go and buy one - you will be diappointed.

 

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