With 37 years of service at Aprilia under his belt, Claudio Pellizzon has seen the company grow from a small-volume, dirt bike and scooter firm to a big player in sportsbikes. He tells TWO of the highs and lows of bike testingSo Claudio, how many

with motorsports. We have one eye on the road and always one on the racetrack. KTM is ready to race.And the motor is reliable, we have done a lot of testing. I reckon we have blown up about 50 engines testing them. When this happens you have two guys, a laughing

favourite runs!”WE NO LONGER SPEED TEST ON THE AUTOBAHN“It’s been a long time since we last used public roads like the autobahn for high-speed testing. We much prefer to use our own test areas and racetracks for these purposes.”ISN’T EVERYONE A NÜRBURGRING

SECRET“I am from Austria and the roads in the Austrian Alps are the most beautiful in Central Europe. They are easy to reach from Munich but I would rather not reveal which are my favourite runs!”WE NO LONGER SPEED TEST ON THE AUTOBAHN“It’s been a long

managed to squeeze our interview in for a few hours on her one day off, before she drove away up North (obviously at 200mph) to test a load of bikes for Top Gear. Yes indeed, having tested every modern car to hell and back, Miss Henderson is now having a

? What did that mean?LH: We've done twenty days of testing and in twenty days of testing I'd have hoped we'd have progressed a little bit more.MF: Is there one key area you expected more improvement?LH: The biggest thing we've been concentrating

from a GSX-R1000 to a Hayabusa and in the end they want to be on the equivalent of a Pan. As for a MotoGP bike on the road, I can’t see it – the costs for such low volumes are just too difficult.”Suzuki’s test track is terrifying“The test riders over

lusted over in your youth?I only had one 'bike' in my youth, a Puch Maxi.4. What were you riding and where when you first did 100mph?In France on a '97 CBR600 about six weeks after passing my test.5. What should the speed limit be on a clear and empty

25% of the time just getting the bike through emissions testing. But we have to fulfill the rules, and we have done well. The race exhaust doesn’t make much difference, power and torque is almost the same, but the race silencer is 8kg lighter. Which

the road, but you just couldn’t ride it slow, it begs to be nailed. You’ve got to be a test pilot to ride an R properly on the road and I’m no Jamie Whitham or anyone like that, so I got rid of it.Kerry comes out on the bike with me now, she enjoys it