Hannes Haller's Aprilia Caponord |
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My Buying Decision In December 2001 I still had not made up my mind about what I was going to buy, yet was determined to get a new bike before year's end. I had looked at VFR's, ST4's, CBR's, R1150GS, R1100S and a lot more. I just needed an all around great bike. Something great for long distances and tours (comfort), great in performance (power), great for everyday use (reliability) and yet it still had to fit my budget. The Caponord was always somewhere in the back of my mind but I usually wrote off the idea because of my bias against Italian bikes due to reliability problems. One day I stopped at an Aprilia dealer because he had one sitting in the showroom. Wow! I didn't know Aprilia could do this. But again the thought, would this thing last or turn into my biggest nightmare. I started looking for more information about the Caponord and soon found out that these 998ccm engines were developed by Rotax. This little bit of information helped start to change my mind. I have a lot of respect for Rotax. Suddenly I started to really like this little Italian company because using the same base engine for their big motorcycles makes so much sense. Somewhere in between I also spent some time analyzing what kind of riding I would really be doing and where this riding would take place. I had just been transferred to southern Spain by the company I work for and this had to be taken into consideration. Around Malaga there is an abundance of twisty mountain roads. There are also a lot of small roads which are not in the best of shape. As you can see, suddenly everything started to point in the direction of a Caponord or R1150GS. I spent a few more days buying and reading every motorcycle magazine with any tidbit of info on Caponords or BMWs. Suddenly I found a Swiss magazine which had a review of the Caponord. They claimed they just put this bike through a 10k torture test and that it passed with flying colours. Wow, this was what I was looking for. And the wonderful pictures of the bike in this review certainly helped. One picture with bike in the dirt. Another of sparks flying off the pegs as the bike is being taken around a corner loaded with some soft luggage. This is exactly what I had in mind. My kind of riding. Besides, this Aprilia dealer in Switzerland wanted to get rid of his Caponord. The warranty was expiring month by month as he had initially licensed it for demo rides. Who would buy a new bike with only 6 months of warranty left? Especially when the new models now come with a 2 year warranty. I just figured that if the discount was right, I could not go wrong. And in the end it was. On top of a good discount, the hard boxes were thrown in for free. Several hours later I was back with the cash in hand. I was now the proud owner of an Aprilia Caponord. And suddenly I felt this great relief of having made the decision. I picked up the bike on the morning of December 24th and rode it home on dry roads. Only 20km but when it is minus 10C suddenly 20km seems like an awful long way. Especially in jeans. |