Brace Yourselves For Falco Prices Falling

[wayofthedarkhand]

Now i have sobered up a bit
I would love a job where i get to road test bikes like the people who write for the magazines. There would be some bikes i don't like the feel of.
Has i have said in the past i found the falco odd when i first bought it, riding wise.
Now i am aquainted i don't really look at jap bikes in the same way has i used too.
I love the lines of the body work of the falco and for me i think the engine and its sound track is awsome.
Has in regards to prices of the falco dropping, i think it won't happen has there will always be a market for these beutifull machines.
These bikes are for people who are fed up with the"norm" in my opinion, and i will not be selling mine in the forseeable future.

I bet most of the time the bikes aren't even ridden. I've worked at a leading trade magazine (not bikes) and most of the time for tried and tested sections we just photographed the products and never used them. They were then put on ebay.

Secondly, we had to be favourable about every product in case the company wanted to advertise.

Magazine exist only to make money.

[Falconihlist]

What a very large pile of steaming turd that article is. That said - all of us here see the basic bike as a starting point don't we - and tweak it to how we want it with the available kit.

I think you have summed it up quite nicely there. The Falco is my first bike after my test, and after getting onto other bikes, I still can't find one with better ergonomics for me.

The fact that we buy them and then start doing out own mods to please ourselves and not what everyone else deems to be the right mods is what makes us stand out a bit more than the rest. On various forums we are recognised for our willingness to try all sorts of adaptations and make them work.

For those of us that are keeping our bikes, the price is irrelevant, but if it does mean a drop in price and that allows someone new into the fold, then surely that must be a good thing (especially for the vultures )

[D-Rider]

The fact that we buy them and then start doing out own mods to please ourselves and not what everyone else deems to be the right mods is what makes us stand out a bit more than the rest. On various forums we are recognised for our willingness to try all sorts of adaptations and make them work.

The wonderful irony in all this is that PB has an strong theme of featuring bikes that have been modified. Every month they have their "Obsession" feature of bikes that have been extensively modified, plus a number of modified readers' bikes plus a garage feature showing the facilities some have for working on their bikes ..... yet they wince at needing to upgrade the suspension on the Falco.
Actually, at the start of the group test there is another comment on the Falco:

APRILIA FALCO Introduced in 1999 as an all-rounder version of the twin-cylinder RSV Mille, featuring a detuned engine, roomier riding position and low spec suspension. It ran with few modifications until 2005.

So ignoring the fact that their comment about the detuned engine contradicts the main article [It's got the same smooth, revvy, 105bhp engine as the first RSV Mille] I hardly think that having exactly the same forks as the Mille qualifies as low spec suspension. In fact upgrading to Ohlins forks didn't make a vast improvement over the Marzocchis that mine came with. Yes the rear suspension is not in the same league by a long shot but still better than many bikes of the same era.

.... and the final irony ....
The headline feature on the cover of the mag:

Why a 2006 ZX-10R Beats Today's Best
15bhp more midrange - better where you need it

..... and if a Falco is not a bike designed to have what you need where you need it more than those others in the test ..... or even those not in the test ....

[szrdave]

Ah, but more importantly did anyone spot the Falco in the 'Our Bikes' feature on page 82/83

[D-Rider]

Ah, but more importantly did anyone spot the Falco in the 'Our Bikes' feature on page 82/83

Yes - i forgot to mention that I'd noticed that - a Fire Red one in 2 of the pics .... but I've yet to understand the significance of the pics to the article (not that I've read it all yet).

[control_67]

PB put the falco up against the wrong bikes for that test. In Nov 2000 they tested the (then new) falco against the Triumph Sprint RS and Buell Lightning. They couldn't praise the falco highly enough and it came out on top of the test. They still called it practical though.

Really though, putting the 'sports tourer' up against the WSB homologation model from HRC is daft, like has been said before, that would have been the competition for the RSVR, the falco would have been aimed at the same market as the Firestorm or VFR.

The falco hat is pictured in the 'our bikes' section is a report on the PBMF tunnel run that took place recently.

[Kwackerz]

Really though, putting the 'sports tourer' up against the WSB homologation model from HRC is daft

For a standard Falco, yes.. Im sure Alad's Stealth Falco would have been more of a match.. there's a couple of other mildly breathed on ARS Falcos that would have been up for putting the SP1 in its place.. theyre comparing the wrong machines..

[wayofthedarkhand]

[fatboy]

Bunch of fickle tossers. I could kick myself for taking so long to take the Falco route, bored of Jap 4s,overpriced Trumpets, my mate suggested a Falco, saw one on Eblag, didnt sell,went to see,fell in love ! ! !
The guy I bought it from said its the most exciting and frightening bike he has ever owned, Im with him on that ! !

[mangocrazy]

The guy I bought it from said its the most exciting and frightening bike he has ever owned, Im with him on that ! !

Toss that blue-spring Sachs shock and replace it with something decent. It should then lose most of the 'frightening' bit...

[HowardQ]

It's total bollox Andy, although a comparison with an SP1 is a bit odd.
The best report I ever read was Mike Armitage in Bike Magazine a few years ago, now there's a bloke who really understands the Falco.
You end up thinking he was with you last time out for a good ride, he really thinks like a Falco long term owner.
He also rated it possibly the most underated bike of all time.
It also won the test with a 9R and a 955 Datona.
I don't have a copy here in Spain on hols, do you have one you can post up Andy?
So our new owners can read a real test.
Then again Ben (Wilkins) has also done a few decent write ups over ther years, but he has owned one for 12 years!

[D-Rider]

Martin Poll has a couple of magazine tests on his website - here are the links:
RiDE magazine: http://www.martinpoll.dk/diverse/anmeldelse.pdf

Motorcycle Sport and Leisure: http://www.martinpoll.dk/diverse/Review_%20of_falco.pdf

Also it's consistently good performance within the RiderPower surveys flies in the face of this latest review.

[Nooj]

Wrong bike for that sort of mag, surely? The Falco's not a squid rocket, it's a bike for people who can think for themselves and aren't so insecure they have to ride what ever this month's bike mags tell them to. The longer I own my Falco, the better I know it and the more I realise bike journalists rarely know what they're on about.

The last Falco review that was posted up on here (all be it a good review) was cobbled together from various ARS members' forum posts, clearly no opinion was formed by a journalist actually riding a Falco at the time, they'd just copied and pasted from here and got paid for it.

There are a few decent writers out there, but for the most part the main-stream bike mags are full of irrelevant crap.

[blinkey501]

Martin Poll has a couple of magazine tests on his website - here are the links:
RiDE magazine: http://www.martinpoll.dk/diverse/anmeldelse.pdf

Motorcycle Sport and Leisure: http://www.martinpoll.dk/diverse/Review_%20of_falco.pdf

On a slightly different note...
Why won't my computer down load these two links
I have same problem when trying to book for the 1000 bikes at mallory.
And finally when i try and down load the link for the falco manual that D rider posted for me i have the same problem

[Aladinsaneuk]

Try right clicking