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"First Ride" Aprilia SVX450 Supermoto

Monday, 20 June 2005

Aprilia SXV450 Supermoto

Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time...

Robert Pandya, press God from Aprilia met me with the biggest shit eating grin this morning at the Honda Hoot in Knoxville Tennessee and unveiled this - potentially the 2006 Aprilia SXV450 Supermoto.

This was a full rolling chassis, which looked like a genuine production run, especially with its cast rear subframe and very tidy factory quality bracketry here and there. It’s all in the details, with some ultra slick carbon fiber and a very delicious and compact looking underseat titanium exhaust system.

This SXV 4.5 has a steel perimeter frame with alloy side spars and has style points directly relatable to the current RSV-R streetbike with its red, orange and black decal detailing This is a quite incredible looking bike, and function definitely follows form because it’s the same one that took the 2004 Supermoto S2 class championship, across the pond (Aprilia’s 26th World Championship, I think). Aprilia plan to make both a 450 and 550 motor, this particular model will be doing the rounds and is strictly a display model only.

We’ll see a competition only SXV Supermoto in the states, sometime early next year (after the Euro’s, I’m afraid). This should be followed by a street legal dual sport version, labeled the RXV.

Power is slated to be around 70BHP, and with a wet weight well south of 250lbs, it should be a very entertaining ride regardless of genre.

I promised you the first US ride and that’s what I got. Unfortunately this bike was sans crank and transmission, so here’s the new Aprilia USA National sales boss, Hampton Hale, providing the “motor” for me.

If you were there and listened carefully you could hear Pandya making the necessary "brmm brmm" noises as Hampton pushed me around and around.

Mike Emery

Oh how we laughed...

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