The Aprilia RS 457 is about as close as you’ll come to a big-bike feel at a somewhat digestible price.
Riding around the streets of Mumbai the RS 457 is quite well-behaved. Despite riding for hours through heavy traffic and near 40-degree heat, the cooling system keeps everything under control. That's not to say there is no heat but it's rather well contained and while you will feel warmth around the motorcycle, there are no unpleasant blasts of hot air.
Don't expect the best mileage in bumper-to-bumper traffic as our city test returned a surprisingly low figure of 17.03kmpl. However, increase the speeds and things get better with our highway test returning a much more reasonable 32.52kmpl. Interestingly even when ridden at a brisk pace, the efficiency is not bad and you can realistically get 220-240km on a tankful.
There are three riding modes but they only change the throttle response not the power output. Sport mode is the default when the bike turns on and it can be quite sharp for some riders, and switching to Eco or Rain dulls the throttle nicely. Something else that’s very nice in the city is that the clutch is super light, but still has decent feel.
Hit the highway and it climbs to triple-digit speeds with little to no effort.120 and even 130kph are very smooth and this engine will make for a great touring partner. Vibrations are very well controlled for the most part only with a mild tingle in the footpegs at high rpm.
The gearbox is smooth enough and we never faced any false neturals, but it does sound a bit clunky, sort of like the KTM transmissions. And that brings us to one of our few mechanical issues with this bike - it really deserves a quick shifter! Aprilia will sell you one, but it will cost about Rs 28,000 which is a huge amount of money. Moreover, we haven’t yet experienced it, so we can’t tell you if it’s any good.
But what’s far more exciting is that this is now the fastest accelerating bike in the class. In fact it comes very close to some 650cc ADV motorcycles with a 0-100kph time of just 4.99 seconds. Knowing that you have a machine capable of a sub 5s 0-100 time is a special thing. In fact, the RS does a great job of feeling like a special motorcycle and even though the exhaust isn't the best looking, it certainly knows how to make the right sounds. While the existing Japanese parallel twins scream as they rev to the top, the 270-degree firing order makes the Aprilia bark and growl on its way to the red line. Downshift and you'll be welcomed with some small and occasional pops and cracks as you come to a halt.
Speaking of, after our brake fade issues on the track it remained to see how the system handled regular street riding. In most situations, it was actually quite impressive and the bike once again posted the best results of the segment thanks to the combination of a sharp front brake and excellent TVS Eurogrip Protorq Extreme tyres. However, it’s not all perfect and while regular or even brisk riding doesn’t phase the brakes, if you start really attacking them repeatedly (like at the track or on a fast downhill ghat) you will run into the same brake fade issues. We even got the pads heavily smoking at one point.
Cooling them off does bring back most of the performance, but it appears that if you wish to ride your RS 457 hard and fast you’ll want to invest in better brake pads and higher performance fluid. That should fix the issue, but we’ll have to try it out to be sure. Aprilia also lists a set of accessory ‘racing pads’ but we’re waiting to hear if these are street-legal and how much they will cost.