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While away for a run around Scotland my boots decided to fall apart, so I found a bike shop selling clothes which actually turned out to be an aprilia dealer, very friendly and helpful people from the family run business, and the guy seemed very knowledgeable on aprilia as you would expect from a dealer. He seemed interested in my falco.....but one thing he said, that I can't shake from my head is "oh the early ones before 2001 had very soft gearboxes" which mine is, I just kinda nodded and carried on listening until we left, i understood these to be pretty bullet proof with proper servicing etc but is there truth in his comment? Makes me a little paranoid about giving the old girl a "good run" on a nice day :)

Never ever heard that before.

Clutches maybe a bit more finicky but not gearboxes.

I think by now that if early Falcos had a 'soft gearbox' (whatever that may be) that one of the higher mileage citizens on here would have encountered it. As far as I know, gearbox failures are as rare as unicorn droppings.

Now if you mis-heard and the dealer said 'soft owners', then he clearly has a point...

Not heard of a "soft gear box" nor am I sure what is meant by it. Over 70k on mine which was registered in 2001, and if I'm not positive when selecting first, occasionally it doesn't properly engage and has been known to pop out of gear. Only other issue was the failure of a clutch release bearing.

Good, that's the answer I was hoping to hear, i can carry on riding the way I do :)
Perhaps he maybe did say it was the riders who were soft lol
Definitely includes me ha ha

He did compliment the falco saying it was a better bike than the Mille as in the extra weight made them feel more planted, what the difference in weight or handling characteristics are I have no idea, I've never ridden a Mille so I just had to smile and nod as though I had a clue what he was on about lol

His words though " engines are indestructible but the early ones pre 2001 had soft gearboxes"
That made me wonder, because at the end of the day this guy seems to know a heck of a lot more about aprilia than me plus he's a bike mechanic and an aprilia one at that. But I thought I'd ask the question on here and lay my worry to rest :)

Shetland Woody wrote:He did compliment the falco saying it was a better bike than the Mille as in the extra weight made them feel more planted,

He sounds pretty clueless.
Weights ready for starting including oil and fuel:

• Mille: 221 Kg (Source - the Aprilia Mille Workshop Manual)
  Falco: 222Kg (Source - the Aprilia Falco Workshop Manual)

So technically he's right, the Falco is heavier .... by 1Kg (0.45%) ..... or a bag of sugar ....
Well that's going to be the reason it feels more planted ..... NOT !

If he thinks prilas have soft boxes what the hell must he think of Yamaha boxes?!!

D-Rider wrote:

Shetland Woody wrote:He did compliment the falco saying it was a better bike than the Mille as in the extra weight made them feel more planted,

He sounds pretty clueless.
Weights ready for starting including oil and fuel:

• Mille: 221 Kg (Source - the Aprilia Mille Workshop Manual)
  Falco: 222Kg (Source - the Aprilia Falco Workshop Manual)

So technically he's right, the Falco is heavier .... by 1Kg (0.45%) ..... or a bag of sugar ....
Well that's going to be the reason it feels more planted ..... NOT !

Maybe the mile fairing is engineered to produce more down force at speed so feels more planted even though weight is same ?

Maybe Falco owners tend to be fatter.

randomsquid wrote:Maybe Falco owners tend to be fatter.