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Come Join Us for a Live Chat with Moto Designer Miguel Galluzzi

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Got big plans for the coming weekend? Of course you don’t, you’re probably stuck inside like the rest of us. But, we can help with that and ease your motorcycle cravings at the same time.

On Saturday, May 9th at 10am PDT / 7pm CEST, Asphalt & Rubber will be sitting down with esteemed motorcycle designer, Miguel Galluzzi.

Currently the head of design at the Piaggio Group (Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Piaggio, and Vespa), Miguel has been responsible for a wide range of motorcycles and scooters.

His resumé includes a number of iconic designs and important motorcycles for the industry, from his time at Piaggio, and also during his tenure at Cagiva/Ducati.

Always with a keen eye on the industry, and what is happening in the world at large, Miguel always provides great insights. You have probably passed him a motorcycle show or race, and not realized it, while he soaks up the latest trends coming to the industry.

For our live chat, I will of course have some questions of my own for Miguel, but we want to make the show interactive, so we will be taking questions from the audience as well.

This means you can submit questions ahead of time, here in the comments section or via social media. Or, you can join us on the live stream, and ask questions from the live chat on YouTube.

There are several ways to watch the live stream. The easiest is that the video above will go live on Saturday, but we will also be reminding you on social media as well.

Of course, you can also go straight to YouTube via this link here. We hope to see you on the chat!

Link: YouTube

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Recall

Aprilia Next to Be Hit by the Big Brembo Brake Pad Recall

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The big Brembo brake pad recall continues onward, this time with Aprilia reporting to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that the recall affects its V4 lineup.

Accordingly, the recall affects both trim levels of the Tuono V4 and RSV4 sport bikes, for the 2017 to 2020 model years (only the 2017-2018 model years for the RSV4 RF though).

This recall affects 3,287 V4 units sold by Aprilia in the United States, which constitutes all the RSV4 RR, RSV4 RF, Tuono V4, and Tuono V4 Factory sold in the United States during those time periods.

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A&R Pro

More Photos (And Thoughts) on the Aprilia RS250 SP

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When I was putting together the story on the pricing for the Aprilia RS 250 SP race bike, I thought I had shared already some photos of the bike from EICMA, but that wasn't the case.

I am not sure if that oversight comes from the madness of dozens of bikes being released at the same time; a complete lack of sleep for a week coupled to a nine-hour time change; or if simply the paltry number of photos I had taken was the cause of the gallery not going up; but it doesn't matter. Here we are.

I do want to share these meager photos though (still in hi-def, of course), not so much because of how impressive the Aprilia RS 250 SP is as a race bike (especially now that we know it's priced at €9,700), but because of the idea behind the machine. Here are some quick thoughts.

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Bikes

Aprilia RS 250 SP Finally Gets a Price Tag: €9,700 – Ready to Race

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At the 2019 EICMA show in Milan, one of the surprises we saw in Italy was the Aprilia RS 250 SP motorcycle. A race-only machine, this quarter-liter four-stroke motorcycle from Noale is designed to be one thing: a cheap racing platform for Italy’s future two-wheeled stars.

Built in partnership with the FMI (Italy’s motorcycling federation) and Ohvale, the Aprilia RS 250 SP promised to be an affordable turnkey race bike, which would compete in a spec-series in Italy next year.

While we knew a bit about the bike’s technical bits, the one key feature missing from the Aprilia RS 250 SP’s debut at EICMA was its price. But now, we know that too: €9,700 – ready to race.

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MotoGP

Andrea Iannone Gets an 18-Month Ban for Doping from the FIM

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The International Disciplinary Court of the FIM has reached a decision at last. Andrea Iannone has been found guilty of having a banned substance in his bloodstream, and suspended from competition for 18 months.

The ban is backdated to December 17th, 2019, meaning that Iannone will be eligible to compete from June 16th, 2021.

The ban of 18 months is a reduction from the maximum allowed by the rules of 4 years, and an acknowledgement that Iannone did not ingest the banned substance – anabolic steroid drostanolone – with intent.

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MotoGP

Aprilia’s MotoGP Team Launch Perfectly Tells Their Story Right Now

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The last of the factory teams to unveil their 2020 team and livery, Aprilia Racing is showing off an early iteration of its 2020 Aprilia RS-GP MotoGP race bike.

Unlike some other debuts, Aprilia (like KTM) is showing us some of the actual changes we will see for next season, most notably the RS-GP’s revised intake and aerodynamics package.

Of note is the lengthy amount of work gone into streamlining the front wheel area of the Aprilia RS-GP, and we can see that the tail section sports a salad box configuration, similar to what Ducati pioneered.

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MotoGP

The New Aprilia RS-GP Debuts at Sepang for 2020, Gets Positive Reviews from the Riders

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2019 was a long, hard year for Aprilia. The hiring of new Aprilia Race CEO Massimo Rivola signaled a year of rebuilding for the Italian factory, as Rivola took over the organizational side of the MotoGP project, freeing up Romano Albesiano to concentrate on building a brand new RS-GP from the ground up, and providing Albesiano with the resources to do so.

That project forced Aprilia riders Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Iannone to battle on through the 2019 season with a bike that was struggling to be competitive.

The wait came to an end at the MotoGP shakedown test at Sepang, where Aprilia rolled out the new RS-GP, in the hands of test rider Bradley Smith. “Those six or seven months of waiting were worth it,” was Smith’s verdict after the first full day of testing on the 2020 prototype.

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MotoGP

How Aprilia’s Organizational Changes Give Hope for the Future

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Since they returned to the MotoGP paddock officially – and not under the guise of the ART, the RSV4-based bike which raced first under the Claiming Rule Team banner, and then in the Open Class – Aprilia has struggled.

Their MotoGP program got off to a bad start, the loss of Gigi Dall’Igna to Ducati forcing them to reschedule their plans.

Romano Albesiano, who took over as head of Aprilia Racing, found it hard to combine his role as lead engineer with the organizational duties of managing the racing department.

Albesiano came from a development and engineering background, and seemed to lack interest in the practicalities of a running a race team. Those took time away from developing the RS-GP, and so the project floundered.

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MotoGP

Major Redesigns Coming for the Aprilia RS-GP in 2020

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The 2020 MotoGP season has already had an interesting start for the Aprilia Racing squad, with the off-season headlines dominated by the doping results of the Italian team’s Italian rider, Andrea Iannone.

While we could learn as soon as next week whether Iannone’s “B” sample tests positive or negative for anabolic steroids, this week the rumors center around the changes coming to the Aprilia RS-GP for next season.

This is because news from Italy pegs some major movements are underway in Noale, and that an all-new design and technical basis for the Aprilia RS-GP is set to debut at the Sepang test next month.

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MotoGP

Karel Abraham in for Andrea Iannone at Aprilia?

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Generally speaking, December is a quiet time for the MotoGP paddock, as teams and riders take their holidays and well-earned time off very seriously.

It is a brief reprieve until testing starts again in the new year, but for the Aprilia Racing squad, their MotoGP effort is on high-alert after the news that their rider Andrea Iannone failed a drug test in Sepang earlier this year.

Facing a potential four-year ban, the future of Iannone’s racing career likely resides in the testing of his “B” sample from the Malaysian round, but naturally Aprilia has its own Plan B in the works as well.

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Dirt

Aprilia Very Quietly Teases the New Tuareg 660 at EICMA

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No press releases. No social media hype-posts. No big fancy displays. In fact, it was very easy to miss that Aprilia was giving us a glimpse at its next middleweight motorcycle at EICMA at all. But, it was there if you were careful to look at your surroundings.

Now granted, it is very hard to tell what is going on with the Aprilia Tuareg 660, since…well, the Italians covered it in shrubbery. Such is the state of their display at the Milan trade show, as they try to tease us with this ADV model.

But, we can pick out some details between the vines, bushes, and leafs…and they are intriguing.

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