Over the course of the past couple of months, we’ve been receiving news of Aprilia’s smaller displacement bikes. There’s reportedly a 125cc Tuono, a 250cc adventure bike in the works. And now, there's a 250cc sport bike.
There’s only one catch: it’s not street legal and it’s for the Italian market only.
The bike is called the Aprilia RS 250 SP. SP stands for Sport Production, a class of motorcycle racing Aprilia hopes to start with this particular race bike.
First announced at the 2019 EICMA motorcycle show, the RS 250 SP was conceived by Aprilia Racing and the Federazione Motociclistica Italiana (Italian Motorcycling Federation) to kickstart a racing series to develop young motorcycle racing talent.
The goal is to get young boys and girls, starting from eleven years old, into circuit racing and groom talent for Italy’s National Speed Championship, and eventually professional series like MotoGP and WSBK. After all, it was Aprilia that launched the careers of MotoGP legends like Max Biaggi, Loris Capirossi, Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Marco Melandri, Jorge Lorenzo, Marco Simoncelli and Manuel Poggiali, not to mention Roberto Locatelli, Tetsuya Harada, Alessandro Gramigni and Kazuto Sakata. Biaggi, Capirossi and Rossi, began their racing careers with the Sport Production bike class.
The Aprilia RS 250 SP was designed specifically to develop future Rossis. It was designed and developed by Aprilia Racing in collaboration with Ohvale for use on the track and to make the growth of young talent easy and gradual.
The bike was made with the know-how and technology of the Noale Racing Department, based on the RS 125 with racing components from Brembo, Öhlins, and SC Project in the search for the best weight/power ratio. It rides on Pirelli slicks shod on Marchesini 17-inch wheels.
It’s powered by a carbureted 250cc single-cylinder four-stroke engine that makes 28hp. It tips the scales at 105 kg dry. Another goal was to make the race bike accessible with a price under €10,000. It’s priced at €9,700 (PhP534,000) ready to race.
Unfortunately, it is only available for Italian kids, aged 11 years old and up with an IMF racing license. There’s also an additional €1,200 (PhP66,100) registration fee for the racing series.
