God was concerned. 

Even immortals age, and Jesus, by the end of the twentieth century, was into his late teens. As an only child, with no mother figure to speak of, it was difficult. He'd spent the entire Industrial Revolution in his bedroom listening to awful music, and the cherubim and seraphim were complaining that it was destroying the whole Heavenly ambience. He'd even attempted to paint his bedroom black, but the Heavenly Light that suffused the place had soon bleached it a sort of fiftieth wash of cheap jeans look. That had caused a fair few ructions, as well. He didn't even want to go burying dinosaur fossils to confuse the fundamentalists anymore.

God sighed and returned to trying to get his Harley Davidson (tm) to start. He didn't really like bikes, but at his age, it was either that or a fling with Aphrodite. St. Barnabus in PR said it would bring his image more up to date, more 'with-it'. The beard looked quite good, though. Perhaps, with Jesus now old enough to ride, he'd be interested in joining His Father on some rides? It would be something, at least...

God knocked on Jesus' door. 'Whaayawant?' came the grunted reply, the surliness only slightly broken by the voice warbling from E below C to G two octaves up in the space of those syllables. God sighed and opened the door, noting that Jesus quickly hid the picture of Mary Magdalene he had been examining closely under his pillow.

God sat on Jesus' bed, and the duvet creaked slightly. Jesus glowered at His Father, outraged by this intrusion. 

"Now, Son, I know that it hasn't been easy for you lately, what with all those dingbats on Earth wearing those crucifixes and everything, but you really should get out more. Come out here, I have something I wish to show you."

With a grunt, Jesus followed his father out to the porch, and standing there was a brand spanking new Harley-Davidson (tm) Ultra Wide Fat Boy Soft Electra Glide Sport (tm), it's chrome reflecting the Light of Heaven in all directions.

Jesus grunted again, and spoke the longest sentence that God had heard him say since The Renaissance; "What a pile of shit. It's dull, it's such a cliche..." With that, he returned to His room.

God sighed and returned to coming up with new ways of annoying the humans.

Jesus, however, was thinking. The bike had given him an idea. With his own transport, he could get away from here for a while... maybe even that cute little angel over in the Lost Souls department would agree to come watch the Son et Lumiere with him... but he couldn't do something his father would agree with, though. The Old Man was so... so... so... here his train of thought was derailed by an epiphany.

Why not use Dad's own plan against him? Get a bike, but make it as far opposite as possible from Dad's Harley...

He began thinking. It would need to be uncomfortable, for a start. The kind of thing you could only ride if you were still young and supple, before lower-back problems and baldness set in. Instantly, a high, sculpted seat unit and fuel tank appeared, as well as swept-back, low handlebars and high, rear-set footpegs.

Now, it would need a tiny engine, designed to idle at speeds that a Harley would self-destruct at. A 125 cc engine appeared under the tank.

Now, the noise... it would need to set Satan's own teeth on edge. An expansion chamber snaked out and under the engine, and ended in a tiny carbon-fibre silencer.

Handling... well, it had to be absolutely perfect. Nothing else could possibly do to show up Dad's old bone-shaker. Instantly, a sculpted, asymmetrical swingarm appeared, gripping a wide, low-profile Dunlop. At the front, upside-down forks and another Dunlop. Connecting the two was an aluminium frame so beautiful that even Jesus' own breath was taken away.

The finishing touches now... a fairing, complete with huge air outlets and headlights that glowed with the Light of Heaven.

Jesus swung his leg over the Bike. He touched the starter button, and it rasped into life. He roared out of his room, a crash-helmet with dark visor on His head.

The Aprilia RS125R Extrema was born...

And now for the real review...

My bike is an Aprilia RS125R, 97 model (but with typical Italian-ness, the 97 model didn't come out until 98...), in silver. It is, in my unbiased opinion, the most beautiful thing ever to set wheel on highway. The earlier (Sports) models were kind of blocky and eighties, and this year's (Replica) models are rather anonymous, lacking the huge radiator outlets and air-intakes. I bought it new in April '98 for £4,299, including alarm. (Prices have dropped now, but not as much as other manufacturers- demand has always exceeded supply for these bikes).

Details abound - the amazing shape of the swingarm, the way the tank is sculpted to accept your knees and elbows, the gold brake calipers, fork bottoms and drive chain.

Sitting on it, it's both high (seat height is about the same as a bigger sports bike) and low (so narrow that even my 5 foot nothing sister can flatfoot it), and the top of the tank has a way cool race-look filler cap and a dinky little '3 times world champions' sticker (later models reflect the last two years dominance of the 125 and 250cc GP championships with an 'eight times world champions' sticker...)

The top yoke is a thing of quite amazing beauty, looking for all the world like a solid slab of billet (it's actually anodised stainless steel) with anodised red fork-tops (unadjustable, unfortunately, but apparently CBR600 fork-tops can be fitted easily enough) and up a bit is the dash... ahhh... that dash. A big rev-counter on the right, a slightly smaller speedo down and left, and a digital display top centre, which can display either engine temperature (critical) voltage (permanently low, but it *is* Italian...), both with the time at the bottom (something even some tourers lack) or, coolest of all, a ten-lap timer, which is activated from a little button on the left bar just below the horn button. 

After the running in period (question- how *does* one keep a bike below 6,000 rpm for 1,000 kms when you need 6,500 to pull away properly?) and the first service, things start to settle in nicely. Starting it up, the digital display shows 'COLD'. Warming up properly is absolutely imperative with any stroker, and the display really helps. After a few minutes, the smoke starts to thin from the exhaust, and the display shows 32 degrees. Blip the throttle, and the rev counter (which had been jumping erratically between 1,500 and 2,000 rpm) hurtles round towards the redline with terrifying ease and then settles back down. Pull away gently, with the aid of a perfectly weighted clutch and bimble for a few minutes as the engine wakes up and the Dunlop D204s start to warm up. Throttle blipping is fun at this point, as well as imperative to stop the engine from bogging the first time you use the throttle in earnest.

After a few minutes, the engine temperature has reached the magic 80 degrees, and you can really start to have fun. Open the throttle, and you're rewarded with a huge cloud of smoke from the exhaust and an odd wet sound. You've let the engine bog *again*. A few more intensive blips and you're ready. Point yourself at some twisties and let rip.

Engine noise is oddly muffled once you're on the bike, with a surprising amount of induction roar. Once you pass the first power band, at about 7,000 rpm, the engine takes on a more familiar hard note, and you urge forward with quite scary velocity for a small bike. Five perfect clutchless changes through the perfect box, and you'll be nudging the ton (an indicated 110 or so) on the full power version, or about 90 on the restricted version. The derestricted version has a power valve which cuts in at 8,000 rpm, doubling the noise and power more or less. The restricted version peters out at about 10,000 rpm, the full-power at 13,000 (red line at 11,000, limiter at 14,000)

Ah, a corner, the RS125's raison d'etre. A squeeze of the right lever brings a surprisingly muted bite, but there is a *lot* of power available (rolling stoppies ahoy!). and you realise that you're going twenty mph too slow. You bimble round, hoping no-one's seen you, and start accelerating for the next one. There's no engine braking worth speaking of, but it does make a *brilliant* WRrreoooowwwwrrr noise on the over-run... 

Harder on the brakes now, and... the back starts to slide. Odd... you're hardly using it. Irrelevant, really, with the back wheel an inch off the floor... ;-) Now travelling quickly through the corner, feed the power in, and... bugger! Could have gone through there much quicker!

Next corner, don't brake at all, nail it all the way through OH SHIT IT'S TIGHTER THAN I THOUGHT OHSHITOHSHITIHSHIT.... Oh. I'm through. Hmmm... It really is that good. Cowshit/manhole cover on your line? Just choose a different one. Suicidal pedestrian stepping out on a blind bend? Sit it up, brake hard, lay it back down and make it with enough ease to flip him the finger. Sit up, lean forward, hang off, sit on, it doesn't care. Show it a bend and it's through it at any speed you want. Where it really excels, though, is in quick combinations (like roundabouts), changing direction and lean angle so quickly that people following will be convinced you've high sided it.

Bad points... 8 quid a litre for fully-synth two-stroke oil, servicing every 4000 *kilometres*, bloody awful parts service, and it *will* laugh at you if you aren't 100% committed.

Real-world good points? Well. the clock is cool, the wet-weather performance is exactly the same as the dry (you will seek out wet manhole covers, just for the lovely slipping feeling on fast corners...), very crash-worthy (it survived a 30mph lock-up and slide on diesel with only minor scratching (that's character, that) and the obligatory broken indicators, *brilliant* projector head-lights, oh, and the longest warranty offered by any bike manufacturer not called BMW (three years unlimited mileage). 

Aprilia are really serious about this, and only ten years after wining their first GP, are now Europe's biggest bike manufacturer not called BMW (yes, bigger than Ducati...), and are competing in all four major world titles, with the aim of being the only non-Jap bike manufacturer to offer everything from 50cc mopeds to 1000cc superbikes.

In conclusion, I have but five words...

You want one, you do...