Aprilia RS 457: First Ride Review – A Proper Little Aprilia?

Photography - Kamesh Chauhan

We have been waiting for a small capacity sport bike from Aprilia for over five years. What began life as the RS150 has evolved into the RS 457. Yes it's been a very long wait but has it been worth it? In one word… yes, but if you want the long answer keep reading. 

The RS 457 is Aprilia’s first foray into small capacity sportbikes in India. The bike is manufactured in Piaggio’s Baramati plant near Pune, and it is the most powerful made-in-India motorcycle. It’s designed to be fast, fun and relatively affordable… but we’ll get to that a little later.

Looks & feels (almost) like an Aprilia

Speaking of design, this RS 457 looks like a true blue Aprilia - like a scaled down RSV4.  At the same time it also feels very compact because the seat height is set at a really low 800mm, which means if you're short you can get your feet on the ground very very easily. And if you're taller it's not too bad. But the footpegs are set on the higher side, which means if you are about 6 feet in height or taller,  this might feel a little cramped for you. Thankfully, the front does have a lot of room with its long and wide tank. But that means you have to lean forward to get to the bars and that does put you in a slightly aggressive posture. 

But the bars are tall and not too aggressive, and that said you have enough room for someone who is even 6 feet tall to get into a full tuck with their chin on the tank without getting their bum on the back seat. And speaking about the back seat, it's actually quite small, making the bike look a little disproportionate.

As for other things that don’t look right… while the overall build quality of the RS 457 feels quite good, there are some areas which don’t pass muster. Like, for example, the plastics around the fuel tank seem to scratch quite easily, especially near the knee area. But this is something that could be easily remedied by sticking on tank grips, and apart from this, we didn’t have any major complaints about the fit and finish.

Goes like an Aprilia

The RS 457 is powered by a 457cc liquid-cooled parallel twin motor. With 47.6 PS and 43.5Nm on tap, this is not only the most powerful bike engine that’s made in India, but thanks to a 270-degree crank, it sounds fantastic too… almost like a baby V4.

Now this parallel twin has pretty good specs on paper but it's not the paper specs that are really impressive. What's most impressive is the way that power is delivered. Now the motor is quite rev happy but it doesn't feel peaky one bit. It has plenty of mid-range grunt and even the bottom-end feels quite tractable. In fact we could ride the bike in the pit lane in fourth gear at 20kmph and the bike didn't seem to care one bit.

One slight issue all of us felt was that the gearbox was a bit clunky, especially when shifting down quickly. But that could be because our test bikes were factory fresh and hopefully, once they’re run in properly, the gearbox might get smoother. Thankfully, the slipper clutch does offer a very light pull.

Heck, even on the racetrack in the corners, I could ride one gear higher and the bike still had plenty of grunt coming out of the corners carrying lots of speed. And that makes this bike a lot of fun on the racetrack and it's quite usable as well. So whether you're in the city, on the highway or even on a winding mountain road, this motor will give you tons of fun.

Of course, it doesn’t have the top-end of something like the new Yamaha R3. And there are some vibes at very high revs too. But we did manage to see 160kmph on the speedo on the main straight at the Kari Motor Speedway. Considering that this straight has now been reduced in length, this is quite impressive.

Handles like an Aprilia

But this engine is only one part of what makes this bike so much fun. The other of course is its chassis, which is just sublime. Now this twin-spar frame and this compact packaging makes the bike feel quite compact and light and quite easy to maneuver. And changing directions is absolutely effortless. That’s thanks to its fairly tight wheelbase and relatively low kerb weight of 175kg.

And even when leaned over, the RS feels very stable because it's running on the TVS EuroGrip ProTorq Extreme tyres, which, in our book, are some of the best tyres you can get for this class of bike in India. Plus they are very affordable, which means replacements should be very very easy.

The suspension setup felt excellent on the track - firm, but not too hard. Now although we didn’t ride the RS 457 on the road, we got the feeling that it should be able to handle regular bumps and potholes fairly well. And on top of that not only is the rear monoshock adjustable for preload, the front 41mm inverted fork is as well. So setting up the bike for heavier riders should be no trouble at all.

Doesn’t stop like an Aprilia

We do have one big complaint and that is the brakes. Now they're pretty okay for the most part but if you're pushing hard on the track like Kari Motor Speedway (where we tested the bike), you’re going to get brake fade very easily. In fact all of us who rode the bike got bad brake fade after about five or six laps. In fact on my sixth or seventh lap, I got such bad brake fade coming down the straight for C1 that the lever came all the way in and I completely overshot my braking marker. Thankfully the chassis is so nimble that I could get the bike turned in just in time.

Features like an Aprilia

The RS 457 is fairly feature packed too. It gets LED lighting all around, and a 5-inch colour TFT screen that lets you control the bike’s comprehensive electronics package. Thanks to a ride-by-wire throttle, the RS has 3 riding modes: Sport, Eco and Rain. There’s a 4-level traction control system as well, ranging from ATC3 with the highest intervention to completely off. And you also get dual-channel ABS as standard, with the ability to switch it off completely at the rear too. Aprilia will offer Bluetooth connectivity and a quickshifter as optional accessories, but we can’t comment on these as our test bikes didn’t come with either.

Is it a true Aprilia?

Summing it up, we think the RS 457 is the best small-capacity parallel twin sportbike you can buy in the country right now. And speaking of buying, while it might seem a little pricey at Rs 4.10 lakh ex-showroom, it's definitely worth it because you're getting a fantastic motor, a great chassis, lots of electronics, and in almost every way that matters it's a proper little Aprillia.

On top of that the RS 457 is significantly more affordable than its direct competitors - the Kawasaki Ninja 400 and the Yamaha R3. And it offers more performance and features compared to these as well. Quite the one-sided battle here… Of course it has some flaws, which I'm sure can be fixed quite easily. And once they are, things will be almost perfect.