Pikes Peak-Style Aprilia Tuono V4 1100 Track Bike

Cloud Racer: “Pikes Peak contender meets Super Hooligan brawler…”  

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC) — “The Race to The Clouds” — began in 1916 after entrepreneur Spencer Penrose converted a narrow carriage road into the Pikes Peak Highway, a public toll-road which runs from Cascade, Colorado to the 14,115-foot summit of Pikes Peak. In order to promote the new road and his nearby hotel, Penrose decided to run an automobile race all the way to the summit of “America’s Mountain.”

Over the last century, the Race to the Clouds has become one of the world’s most legendary motoring events, attracting competitors and spectators from all over the globe. The race begins at mile marker 7 of the Pikes Peak Highway and ascends 4,720 feet with sheer drop-offs, no guardrails, and some of the most epic views of any race on the planet.

“Boasting 156 turns over a 12.42-mile course beginning at over 9,300 feet and ending at 14,115’ above sea level, this race has no equal. The harrowing course has long served as an automotive proving ground – for automatic transmissions, brake fluid, front-wheel drive, and electric vehicles.” –PPIHC.org

Unfortunately, motorcycle competition was discontinued in 2021 after the tragic death of the “King of the Mountain,” Carlin Dunne, in 2019. A few years earlier, the organizers had instituted a rule to make the racing safer for motorcyclists:

“Every motorcycle that could be entered to race had to come with a one-piece handlebar as standard from the manufacturer, effectively ruling out superbikes and allowing only naked bikes to compete.” –Cycle News

This resulted in some of the coolest, most aggressive naked race bikes on the planet, both production-based machines and prototypes. This 2022 Aprilia Tuono V4 1100 Factory comes from our old friend Michael Vienne of Championship Cycles, who has many years of experience building and racing two-wheeled Italian machinery. When he was offered the Tuono as a track-only build, he immediately knew he wanted to take those Pikes Peak racers as inspiration.

The 175-bhp Tuono V4 was MCN’s Best Super Naked for more than five years in a row, with reviewers noting that few bikes could combine such a comfortable ride on the road with razor-sharp prowess on the track.

“Its 1077cc V4 is a wailing riot of seamless power and monster torque, all wrapped-up in an RSV4 superbike chassis, making it one of the finest-handling motorcycles money can buy.” –MCN

The stock Tuono actually has a good bit of bodywork for a so-called naked bike. Stripping it down to the truly naked form of a Pikes Peak-style race bike necessitated the relocation, repackaging, and streamlining of literal yards’ worth of wiring, relays, control modules, and other electronics. However, having just come off streamlining a Ducati 748 track bike that posed similar challenges, Mike was the man for the job. 

Simplify, Then Add Lightness: Ducati 748 Track Bike

Mike has always been a proponent of Colin Chapman’s “simplify, then add lightness” school of thought, and the Tuono was no exception.

“When I was offered this bike I thought, there’s a truly beastly track only thing lurking beneath all that stock stuff — I just had to jettison it all (whip up some carbon pieces) and keep the most essential bits.”

He’s managed to strip a staggering 115 lbs from the original bike (OEM curb weight: 461 lbs) for a wet weight of just 346 lbs! Some of the most significant savings resulted from stripping the bike of more than 50 lbs of street-legal equipment and wiring, outfitting the bike with a set of lightweight Marchesini forged aluminum wheels, and replacing the factory bodywork with custom carbon and carbon/Kevlar elements like the belly pan. Most of the minimized electronics and battery are hidden between the single-piece carbon tail unit and the tank.

Meanwhile, the brakes were upgraded with 330mm Brembo T-Drive full floating rotors, BrakeTech ventilated pistons for the Brembo Stylema calipers, and a Brembo 17RCS Corsa Corta master cylinder. The top of the line Öhlins Smart EC 2.0 electronic suspension package from the original bike was retained, while a billet IMA adjustable offset triple clamp allows the bike’s geometry to be precisely tweaked.

Woodcraft switchgear and a GPS-enabled lap timer round out the cockpit, with a set of Attack Performance rearsets out back. An SC Project exhaust and ECU reflash were the only engine-related upgrades, as the bike already makes ~175 bhp in stock trim and the reliability was a priority in the design brief.

The result? One of the baddest, lightest, and downright sexiest Aprilias on the planet — a V4-powered rocket that’s ready to attack The Race to The Clouds, if only motorcycles were allowed to return to Pikes Peak. Until then, we look forward to seeing this machine tear up the tarmac of closed course racing circuits, turning heads and hot laps in unison.

“Part Pikes Peak contender meets Super Hooligan brawler that somehow stumbled into an AMA Flat Track paddock is probably the best way to describe it — but labels aside, this thing absolutely flies!”

Below, Mike of Championship Cycles gives us a full rundown of the build, along with more backstory and an extensive parts list. Photography credits go to one of the best in the business, Shaik Ridzwan of The Mighty Motor. 

In the Builder’s Words…

There was a subset of motorcycles that raced the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb* that had a very distinctive look. So when I was offered this V4 1100 Tuono as a track only build, I knew immediately where we were headed. Mandated to have one piece handlebars, and in lieu of bodywork most just wore number plates; all had a purposeful form dictated by function. This would be the starting point of the project.

The Build:

The latest Aprilia Tuono has a full suite of electronics tucked into and woven throughout it (plus all the associated connectors, ECU’s, relays, fuses and yards of wiring).  With the bike stripped of the front fairing, side panels, and most importantly the tail section, the true challenge became repackaging all those systems without having the luxury of a place to actually hide any of it. Everything had to be either relocated or redesigned to be as compact and as thin as possible.

The single-piece, flat track-inspired, carbon tail unit offers just a marginal space between it (and the fuel tank which partially runs beneath it) to house everything. For example, the stock Lithium-ion battery was 5x as tall as the space needed to house it! As such, the new battery is now no thicker than a deck of cards.

Rated at 180hp stock, the Tuono received an SC Project exhaust and an ECU reflash as the only performance enhancements made to the motor side of things (an important item on the list was retaining overall reliability). 

Focus was concentrated on keeping everything as light as possible and improving handling and braking. Marchesini forged aluminum wheels replace the stock heavy cast versions. And another 50+lbs (23 kilos) of weight was carved from the bike by the removal of all the unnecessary street components.

We upgraded the stock braking package with new 330mm Brembo T-Drive full floating rotors, rebuilt the Brembo Stylema calipers with BrakeTech ventilated pistons, and added a Brembo 17RCS Corsa Corta master cylinder.

The Tuono Factory edition comes stock with a complete Öhlins electronic suspension package and that was retained, however we did have IMA produce a RSV4 style, billet, adjustable offset triple clamp for this build, which is fantastic from a tunability standpoint.

New switchgear reduced the controls to only the necessary inputs. When a friend sent an in-progress photo to the head of Piaggio’s Advance Design Center, Miguel Galluzzi, his response was:
“That’s all you need right there, a tank, a motor and a seat!” I can’t argue with that.

*Also known as The Race to the Clouds, the PPIHC is an invitational hill climb to the summit of Pikes Peak – an American mountain in Colorado, USA The PPIHC takes place on a 12.42 mile (19.99 km) public toll-road boasting 156 turns, while competitors climb 4,720 ft. (1,440 m.) from the 9,390 ft. (2,862 m.) start line at mile 7 marker on The Pike’s Peak highway to the 14,115 ft. (4300m) finish line at the mountain’s summit.

Build Sheet

• Marchesini Forged aluminium wheels
• 330mm Brembo T-Drive rotors
• Brembo Corsa Corta 17RCS
• Brembo Stylema calipers with BrakeTech vented pistons
• SC Project 70mm slip on exhaust
• IMA adjustable offset triple clamp
• Woodcraft switchgear
• Attack Performance rear sets
• Modified fuel tank
• Custom carbon air runners
• Custom rear subframe
• Custom carbon tail/seat unit
• Custom carbon/kevlar belly pan
• Modified wiring harness
• 520 sprocket and chain conversion
• Integrated GPS enabled lap timer

Follow the Builder

Web: championshipcycles.com
Instagram: @championshipcycles
Photography: Shaik Ridzwan (@shaikridzwan | themightymotor.com)

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