[Schaden]

The biggest problem I've run into is typically you know more about the bike than the dealer. Aprilia is a big name in Europe, they've had incredible MotoGP success, but they don't sell many bikes in America. You can't take them into any garden variety motorcycle shop for service. But there are good knowledgeable dealers out there. If the OP is thinking about purchasing from Moto International, he's got nothing to worry about, they're an A+ dealer, ranked #2 in N. America behind AF1 Racing in Texas.


Here's something you may find interesting. It's an interview with Dave Richardson, the owner of Moto International, on Aprilia and what makes them special.


Conversation with Dave Richardson, Moto International Owner, Guzziologist, The Guy You Want to Buy a Bike From | Mid-Life Rider

I thought when we first had Aprilia we’d have a bunch of young guys looking at GSXs who wanted to come and look at these and race around on them. It doesn’t happen.

These things are way off the map for them. I don’t know if they don’t know Aprilia exists, or they’re too exotic, or too expensive, or what it is. We’re three blocks from a Suzuki shop and we don’t get the 22 year-old kids looking at our bikes.

I’ve had people come in and look at Aprilias and say, “Gee everyone has a Ducati. I want to be different.” That blows my mind because I was a Ducati guy in the 70s and early 80s. I had a regular group of friends I would do vacation rides with in Portland because there just weren’t any Ducatis in Seattle. The people who had them, they were special bikes and they never rode them.

It just blows my mind that people think that Ducati is the thing everyone has.

There will always be a counter-culture bike. The Victory is for the guy who wants something that isn’t Japanese but more modern than a Harley. It’s a niche. That’s where Aprilia has got themselves. They’re the anit-Ducati. They want to be more than that, but they’re not doing a good job I think of expressing who the company is by way of being more than that.

To me, the two companies are quite opposite. Aprilia does everything to make a bike that performs well, fuss-free, low maintenance, very durable, all these things, but they don’t have any aura about them like Ducati does. Ducati has the aura.

Aprilia has such potential to have such a great aura around them. There are three classes of GP racing for motorcycles, and three for the riders. That’s six. Of the six, Ducati won two and Aprilia won the other four. How many American’s would even know that? Who the heck cares about 125 and 250?

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