{"id":397829,"date":"2026-01-07T16:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397829\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:12:10","slug":"motogp-bikes-25-years-ago-you-take-a-bull-cut-off-its-balls-then-climb-on-its-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397829\/","title":{"rendered":"MotoGP bikes 25 years ago: ‘You take a bull, cut off its balls, then climb on its back’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aprilia<\/a>\u2019s first four-stroke MotoGP bike may have been a failure, but I\u2019d argue that it was the wildest \u2013 and the coolest \u2013 motorcycle on MotoGP\u2019s first 990cc grid.<\/p>\n

Even though the RS Cube never scored a victory or even a podium, it did make history. On Saturday 1 June 2002, the inline-triple became the first 990 to break the 200mph barrier, when factory Aprilia rider Regis Laconi<\/a> clocked 200.27mph during Italian Grand Prix practice at Mugello<\/a>. True, Tohru Ukawa<\/a> and his Honda<\/a> RC211V hit 201.63mph a few minutes later, but that little bit of history will always belong to the Noale brand.<\/p>\n

Laconi was a sight to behold whenever he climbed aboard the Cube. And whenever he returned to pitlane\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cEach time Laconi climbs off the bike he looks like he\u2019s gone ten rounds with some mythical six-headed monster,\u201d I wrote at the time. \u201cEyes bulging and sweat glistening, Laconi then mimes the experience of riding the 220-horsepower Cube as a horseman might act out a wild-stallion ride toward the apocalypse: arms straining from their sockets as he\u2019s dragged towards the horizon at a terrifying rate, with seemingly little control over his destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lack of horsepower certainly wasn\u2019t the Cube\u2019s problem; the big concern was transferring its 220 horses to the racetrack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wanted to kill you everywhere,\u201d says Jeremy McWilliams<\/a>, who raced the Cube in 2004. \u201cIt made lots of horsepower but in all the wrong places. I think it broke every one of my ribs twice that year.\u201d<\/p>\n

But who cares about trifling nuisances like a few broken bones when the Cube was the loudest and best-sounding motorcycle of MotoGP\u2019s new four-stroke era?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A wide-eyed Regis Laconi aboard Aprilia\u2019s 2002 RS Cube<\/p>\n

\n Aprilia\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Earth moves every time the Cube rumbles past,\u201d I wrote in 2002, getting a little carried away. \u201cThe Cube sounds wonderful, like a tumult of bellowing bassoons at the front of an ancient army, weaponry glinting in the sunlight as it rushes onward towards the gates of Hades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aprilia loved the fact that fans adored the bike because it sounded so good. \u201cOur first target is always performance,\u201d Aprilia engineer Jan Witteveen told me. \u201cBut I also believe that the emotion of the fans, and of the people who work with the bike, is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cube also looked super-cool. Its shark-like look was created in CFD, a virtual wind tunnel, then tested in real life at military airbases in northern Italy, where its datalogging measured a top speed of 205mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not a real speed because it was measured at the rear wheel, and you get a lot of tyre slip [spin] at that kind of speed,\u201d added Witteveen.<\/p>\n

The Cube could\u2019ve gone even faster, but Aprilia\u2019s chief aerodynamicist Corrado Ficuccello didn\u2019t design its bodywork for minimal drag. In so doing, he was pointing a way to MotoGP\u2019s downforce aero future.<\/p>\n

Around that time, CFD and wind-tunnel work were telling aerodynamicists that while super-slippery bodywork makes motorcycles faster on the straights, it makes them slower through the corners, which is where the lap time is really made. How come?<\/p>\n

Aprilia weren\u2019t the only people that had worked this out. So had Team Roberts engineer Tom O\u2019Kane, who had spent time in the Lotus F1 wind tunnel, trying to make the Roberts KR3 500 more slippery, in an effort to minimise the bike\u2019s power handicap against the 990s, but the bike became a pig in the turns.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Cube engine was basically three cylinders off a ten-cylinder three-litre F1 engine<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that blindly chasing after low drag coefficient doesn\u2019t help,\u201d said O\u2019Kane. \u201cAlmost everything you do to decrease drag increases lift, which is obviously going to affect the bike\u2019s ability to go round corners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honda had also worked this out. When Valentino Rossi first tested the RC211V in 2001 he complained that the fairing was too small, so he was struggling to stay on the bike at high speeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cValentino complained a lot because he grew up with Aprilia, who use much bigger fairings,\u201d said RC211V project leader Tomoo Shiozaki. \u201cBut we explained the handling benefits of our concept and finally he understood. We knew that a large cowling causes heavier handling and lift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aprilia<\/a> took the next step with their Cube in 2003, signing twice World Superbike champion Colin Edwards<\/a>, whose first outing on the bike, at Jerez<\/a> in November 2002, ended with a major get-off after just four laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like, \u2018Hmm, what have I got myself into?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Edwards grew to love and hate the Cube in equal measure\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I knew what fast was until I got with this thing and it tried to loop out on me in fifth gear, it\u2019s got some beans, for sure!\u201d he said halfway through 2003. \u201cYou take a bull, you cut off its balls, dangle them in front of its face, then climb on its back.\u201d<\/p>\n

When an offer came to ride a Honda RC211V in 2004, Edwards didn\u2019t hesitate twice. His place was taken by McWilliams, who signed a two-year deal with Aprilia, but only got a year with the bike, because the project was shut down at the end of the year. Aprilia had been bought by Piaggio during 2004 and Piaggio bosses didn\u2019t deem the Cube worth saving, even though it had a new project leader: Gigi Dall\u2019Igna.<\/p>\n

\"Edwards<\/p>\n

Edwards aboard the Aprilia RS Cube he loved and hated<\/p>\n

\n Aprilia\n <\/p>\n

The Cube failed largely because Aprilia outsourced engine design to renowned Formula 1 engineers Cosworth.<\/p>\n

Cosworth was responsible for Aprilia achieving several MotoGP engineering firsts \u2013 the Cube was the first 990cc MotoGP bike with pneumatic valve springs, the first with a ride-by-wire throttle and the first with a carbon clutch. Unfortunately, it was also the first with an engine better suited to car racing than motorcycles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aprilia\u2019s first four-stroke MotoGP bike may have been a failure, but I\u2019d argue that it was the wildest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[18009,64,63,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-397829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-aprilia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-motogp","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}