Falco odyssey

[Aladinsaneuk]

Found an old thread at a forum i used to use, that may explain how my falco has evolved -
http://www.eastofenglandbikers.com/?Mem ... co_Odyssey

But to save folk looking at that - here is the text:

Vive la Differance - The Aprilia Falco Odyssey
By Pete (Aladinsane)

The aprilia falco was released in 1999, and its official designation was the Aprilia Mille SL Falco - the SL meaning sports Light.

From the off it was always in the shade of the mille's - it had the same engine, but with different gearing and cams, giving a lower top speed but with a torquey mid range - it was designed as the sports tourer in Aprilia's Rotax V60 engines, fitting between the Mille and the Futura in the range line.

Officially on release the bike made 104 BHP, though certainly in the UK dealers were instructed to remove a restricting plate in the airbox and to snip a lead on the ECU when the first service was done. This upped the BHP to 112.

Initially the bike sold fairly well, but, it was an expensive bike to produce - with the exception of the rear shock absorber, the parts list was very good - and the twin spar frame though eye catching, must have been expensive to produce.
(A few years ago I was chatting with some one from Aprilia UK who was quite open about the falco - effectively it was being sold at a loss to the factory!)

Production effectively ceased in 2003 though bikes were still being sold as new - indeed I know of one registered in late 2008. (I think I also know where there is a brand new one still in the crate.....). THe bike changed very little during its production run - the only major difference being that in late 2000 Aprilia made some unannounced changes to all their bikes - probably to do with new legislation re emissions etc - certainly the air intake system on the falco was reduced slightly.
(These changes are why many Aprilia's are referred to as 2000.5 models). Each year different colours were available - the first colour being Crow Black, the last one being Olympic bronze.

So - a well regarded bike, with good performance and good reliability.... then I bought one.

When I returned to riding a bike again - after a close escape involving a seized fireblade at 120mph and a need to change underwear, I had stopped riding for a few years - but I found a Ducati 750 sport that just needed to be loved. I rode, loved it and realised that as it was a rare ish bike, if i dropped it, then it was a write off.... also, the elctrics were a joke - 35 watt bosch main headlight anyone? I decided to start looking around for a new bike. I had decided that I wanted a Ducati ST2 or very similar - a V Twin that I could tour on and still throw around a little. I had been asking around for such a thing - Carl Harris - an excellent spanner man for anything ducati flavoured btw, happened to mention on the phone that he had what he thought was the perfect bike for me. I wandered along and saw what very quickly became my falco.

The bike was totally standard when i bought it. I had had a new set of Conti Road Attacks fitted and with thos in mind I rode it home carefully.
(I am of course talking bollocks - Harleston to Beccles has roads that just NEED to be ridden for fun...)

I had already started to look around for a falco owners group online and soon met up with several other folks that owned and loved the Falco - what I did not realise is just how much a bunch of modders we are!


First Thing I did - literally as soon as I got home after collecting the bike, was I fitted a new sidestand - well the leg off a honda VTR. All the early Mille's and Falco's are plagued by a side stand that sits the bike up to high - they can and will topple over very easily - most owners either fit a USA model sidestand - a different lean angle, or a VTR / Gixxer sidestand leg.

I was fairly well behaved at that point - just getting used to the bike and not doing to much to it.... but then I decided that the original Aprilia exhausts were pretty quiet.... 4 days later I bolted on a set of Fuel Exhausts. a little more power reported by my arse dyno, and a lot sweeter sounding. At this time I was starting to do a lot of long haul trips - often two up, so when I was offered a Starcom comms system, I bought it and fitted it. Thanks to some luck, I was able to buy a garmin Zumo at the same time.

The Zumo was when I started to really mod the bike. Most sat navs on bikes are on the bars - I wanted mine under the screen..... the standard screen was a little tight so I bought a nice dark double bubble and then made a bracket to support the cockpit cover - then it would take the weight of the garmin and would not vibrate. I also ran the leads for the power and the comms system back to under the seat hidden under the petrol tank....

But as the petrol tank was up, I thought I had better just look at the airbox. Now V Twins like a decent sized air box. NOT the correct figures, but my engine was 1000 cc and the air box was around 750cc - so even a mechanically challenged numpty like me could see that opening the air box would be likely to have an effect. the very helpful chaps at rsvr.net sorted me out with an evo airkit - increasing the airbox to around 1200 cc at a guess.

While waiting for the airbox to arrive, I was just idly playing on evilbay when I saw something that had been incorrectly listed - in the aprilia 125 listings was a lovely, unmarked mille swing arm was not getting any attention at all. I paid £20 plus £10 shipping for it. Changing a swing arm is not something people do lightly - so it is normally done for very good reasons.
I changed mine because I think it looks better......

Obviously the new swing arm would need a hugger so I hid the credit card bill from the wife and acquired a nice carbon fibre hugger - a mistake I think now as I would rather have a plain black one. Why, well, all the stickers etc seemed to fall off the bike and it was being referred to as the stealth falco....

I rode the bike a lot that first year - doing over 6 000 miles and having a blast.

But come October I decided that I had better take the bike off the road and service it etc - I initially planned to just do a service and have the bike back running by the end of November - I did but... around that time the US Dollar was very weak - indeed it got to 2 dollars to the pound. I immediately hit ebay.com and secured a nice power commander 3 - in the uk they were selling for £270 - I paid $270 - or £135 in real terms. While waiting for that to arrive a friend had lost his job and was selling assorted falco bits off - including a rather nice set of blue flame slip on cans - with three different baffle options - I knew that performance wise they would be up there with akrapovich cans. I bought them, and sold my fuel cans - more or less a direct swop so I was happy. By early in the year I was riding again and loving the performance - for christmas I had a new belly pan so the bike was looking pretty tight.

In February last year I did a few deals - where I generated a fair sized lump of wedge. The rear shock on the falco is not brilliant - indeed i had changed it for a white spring early mille version - but I decided that I would get that serviced, so I rode down to see MC Technics. We did talk about the service.... but I bought and had fitted a superb WP shock - and once the bike had been set up it was very very planted - friends who have ridden the bike have all commented on how planted the bike is - so - well worth it.

I rode the bike through the ear last year, but with the crap weather etc, I did not do that many miles - having a one year old son may have had an effect as well. I also started to get a little bit of back ache - at all times, not just when riding a bike, but riding did aggravate it. In typical fashion, I considered heli bars and similar things - then said bollocks to it and moved my existing clip ons to over the triple crown - the steering is a little quicker now! After I did that I was lucky enough to pick up an ohlins steering damper from evil bay for 20 quid.... now fitted.

At the tail end of last year I started to look at the bike and plan some radical changes. I had acquired a pile of assorted bits and pieces from falcos and milles and sat down to play. Over the winter I pulled the exhaust system off, along with the headers. I then fitted a set of mille headers and early collector box. To make them fit I had to change to a steel mille oil tank.. to make that fit i had to route the oil feeds differently, and then dremel parts of the belly pan. Once that was done I was able to fit what I consider my best bargain so far - a genuine renegade competition exhaust system. Even better these cans were high mounts so would leave the sexy swing arm very exposed obviously they were not designed to fit onto a falco, so i spent a little while working that out - brackets were made and they were mounted. They look superb, and sound - well - awesome. I would point out that they are road legal as they have BS stamped DB killers fitted. (Tonight I will take the bike out for a run with out them just too see and hear).

Last week I secured the second to last part of my upgrades for this year - a Renegade Airfilter - this removes the airbox completely and should give me a little more oomph - not that the bike really needs it!

I have done other things but cannot be arsed to type them up - but, wavey disks all round, braided hoses all round, HID headlight, integrated indicators, LED running and brake lights, MPL clutch slave etc etc etc....

Thats it - bar this week end I will be coming home with either a set of 54mm or 57 mm throttle bodies - then the falco will be complete... may be

Would I sell it - no chance - i have a very individualised bike, that suits me. It will do a comfortable 160 mph on a track officer, and will tour comfortably. I think that I will probably have around 127 to 129 BHP at the back wheel - and that on a 10 year old V Twin is not a bad thing
It is not like anything else out there - I know when I go to a meet and see the lines of blades, gixxers etc - and I am not knocking them at all as they are great bikes, but I know people will look at the falco - i do admit i was annoyed when some one asked me which ducati it was but....

It's my bike - Aprilia built it, I made it mine!

[Kwackerz]

Nice write up that

[HowardQ]

Nice write up Pete,
just remind me what was the bike again?

[HisNibbs]

Should get out more........

[Samray]

A good review,





and I'll move it to Bike Reviews in a few days before it drops off the bottom of the page.

then it will be an immortalised odyssey.