Mega little bike, MEGA BIG IMPACT

Some bikes are created on the back of spreadsheets and marketing demands. Others are born out of passion, innovation, and a desire to tick a box that never even existed. Bikes like Aprilia's lesser-known RRV450...

- WORDS: GRACE WEBB

The year 2009 was a memorable one for many reasons. Valentino Rossi took yet another world championship title in MotoGP. Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time – a record that still stands today. Sony sold its floppy disk for the very last time. But what we lost in floppy disks, we gained in Aprilia motorbikes because something else happened in 2009 – the Aprilia RRV450 was born.

When I tell people that one of the personal bikes I own is an Aprilia RRV450, this is often followed by a confused look as cogs turn trying to find an image in the depth of the brain. Understandable, as it is a rare bike, but then there are a few occasions when people say, ‘oh, they were mega little bikes.’ And this is the story of how that mega little motorbike had a mega big impact on motorcycle racing as we entered a new decade.

The story starts with Ian Newton. I've had the chance to get to know him really well over the years and in recent times many of you may recognise him as being a joint team owner of the IN Competition Superbike team at British Superbikes, with Scotsman Lewis Rollo as the team's rider. But Newton's career in motorbikes began when he started racing himself at the relatively late age of 19, but he still had much success at club level racing before taking a leap over Irish waters to the Isle of Man and won at his first outing in the Manx Grand Prix. This taste of winning ignited his love of both road and short circuit racing – two disciplines he took further victories in during the early 1990s when he won at the North West 200 and in the European rounds of the 250 championship. This showed him to be a more than ordinary rider, so it seems fitting that he went on to create something extraordinary in the world of motorcycle racing.