The Cw Library

THE CW LIBRARY

Aprilia, The Complete Story

NYONE WHO HAS EVER WATCHED A GI~AND PRIX OR World Superbike race is no doubt familiar with Aprilia. But ask that same viewer about the Italian compa ny's history and all he's likely to know is that the RSV Mile first went on sale here in the late 1990s.

Quite true, but those are just the final pages in Mick Walker’s new book, Aprilia, The Complete Story. Ten chapters detail what came before, starting with the fact that Aprilia was founded in 1956 by Alberto Beggio, father of current president Ivano Beggio, not as a manufacturer of motorcycle switchgear (that was an unrelated firm) but of bicycles. When the company did start producing powered products four years later, it did so with a humble moped.

Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Aprilia branched out with a line of 50cc scooters, mini-bikes and dirtbikes. It wasn’t until 1976 that displacement grew to 125cc, and it was another six years before the

company unveiled its first streetbike. The youthfully styled, comparatively high-tech ST 125 was an instant hit, and set the company on its course to today’s lOOOcc sportbikes.

This is said to be Walker’s 71st book, and not surprisingly is rather formulaic, the author dutifully detailing the minor changes between model years. That sounds boring, but buoyed by no fewer than 180 photographs (20 of those in color) and historical information that hasn’t been reported before, it’s fascinating reading for Aprilia fans.

Brian Catterson

Aprilia, The Complete Story, Mick Walker, 176 pages, $36; MB! Publishing, Galtier Plaza #200, 380 Jackson St., St. Paul, MN 55101; 800/826-6600; www.motorbooks.com

She’s a Bad Motorcycle

HERE'S A NOVEL IDEA FOR A NOVEL: A COMPILATION of 25 book excerpts and magazine articles about mo ...torcycling. Easy to do, too-just a little time at the computer keying in the text, some haggling over royalties, then stand back and watch it fly off bookstore shelves. Which it should, because She s a Bad Motorcycle contains some very fine writing.

For the most part, She s not that bad. All the great authors who have ever waxed eloquent about motorcycling are included, from T.E. Lawrence to Ted Simon, Tom Wolfe to Hunter S. Thompson, Robert M. Pirsig to Melissa Holbrook Pierson. And the range of motorcycling activities is no less comprehensive: We roost across the Mojave Desert with Steve McQueen and Eric Burdon, play Evel Knievel on a mini-bike with S.E. Hinton, race speedway in L.A.

circa 1930 with Horace McCoy, and more.

When She s bad, however, she’s sinister. Beginning with Thompson’s account of the 1965 Hell’s Angels July 4th run and continuing over the next five chapters, the biker lifestyle is revealed in all its blood-stained debauchery. The various accounts of drug abuse, rape and murder should be required reading for anyone who’s ever played biker on weekends, because these were some seriously twisted individuals.

But if She s got her good and bad sides, it’s only because motorcycling does, too. And Editor Geno Zanetti deserves praise for presenting the best of both in one volume. Think of it as Reader s Digest bound in leather.

Brian Catterson

She’s a Bad Motorcycle, various authors, 326 pages, $17; Thunder’s Mouth Press, 161 William St., 16th floor, New York, NY 10038; 646/375-2570

Superbikes of the Seventies

FOR MANY OF US, THESE WERE THE TWO-WHEELED HOT buttons of our youth, the machines that epitomized all that was wonderful and good and freeing about motorcycling.

From MVs, Laverdas and Ducatis to Suzukis and Yamahas, Roland Brown’s 192-page, full-color collection of musclebikes visits an impressive array of machinery, all ridden for this book. Brown begins with the seminal 1969 Honda CB750 Four and ends with Kawasaki’s giant KZ1300 Six in all its monolithic glory.

The photography is mostly good. Some bikes, such as the Norton Commando 750S opposite the contents page, leave a bit to be desired cosmetically. Others, the beautiful Moto Guzzi V7 Sport among them, are as they should be.

Brown addresses each bike in road-test form with some light historical data thrown in for reference. Also included are a spec panel and at least one contemporary magazine-test quote each, CW and Cycle among them. Contemporary ads are sometimes pictured, as well.

In the end, it’s an interesting compilation from a great era of motorcycling. Even if the writing is a little trite at times, the experience of riding machines that most of us may never own is well conveyed. Like the bikes themselves, this book is hard to resist.

Mark Hoyer

Superbikes of the Seventies, Roland Brown, 192 pages, $40, David Bull Publishing, 4250 E. Came/back Rd., #K.150, Phoenix, AZ 85018; 602/852-9500; www.bullpublishing.com