BACK TO THE DIRT APRILIA TUAREG 660

First ride on Aprilia’s latest middleweight model, following on from the RS 660 and Tuono 660 unveiled last year as the third key element in Piaggio-owned brand’s return to offroad

- Alan Cathcart

WORLD LAUNCH

Ultra-accessible performance of this true all-round model is certain to deliver satisfaction to riders of all levels of experience, while being completely versatile on road and off

Aprilia’s RS660/Tuono 660 middleweight duo have been the standout sellers from any European brand in 2021 in the ever more hotly contested 600-800cc middleweight sector fought over by more than a dozen different manufacturers from East and West. That’s a sector that until quite recently was dominated by increasingly more extreme 600/675cc Supersport models – but now a cocktail of insurance costs, speed cameras and good old fashioned common sense has sidelined these road-legal race replica rocketships to the race track where they rationally belong, and alongside the Naked roadsters that have provided an increasingly popular real world alternative to them, another segment is increasingly taking off in the middleweight marketplace. Dual purpose adventure bikes are the flavour of the moment, and while there will probably always be a market for two-wheeled Range Rovers like the BMW R1250GS, Ducati Multistrada and Honda’s Africa Twin, the real growth in the go-anywhere market is in that 600800cc midsize sector.