Julien Bill on his time with Aprilia
Aprilia’s time in the Motocross world was relatively short lived but they were able to attract some top riders to the team. Julien Bill was one of them and the Swiss talent says in one way it was a good experience but on the other hand he believes they didn’t listen to the riders point of view, perhaps as much as they should have.
“It was a good experience in a way, but very strange in another. They brought a lot of new positive stuff, their experience coming from MotoGP, with development and technology, but they weren’t keen enough to hear the riders point of view and choices”, Bill told GateDrop.com.
Bill on the Aprilia. Pic: Nigel McKinstry
Bill says it was tough to test the bike and get competitive results at the same time because the engineers didn’t listen to the riders input enough. The best time Bill felt on the Aprilia was during the Motocross Des Nations in Franciacorta, Italy.
“Man, to me yeah it was big time. Not because I’m not good at testing or feeling the bike, I can feel a simple bolt vibrating on a bike while riding it, but because engineers were really stuck with their ideas, they didn’t like to change anything if it wasn’t on their plans. They didn’t want to listen to riders. I think that’s mainly why they lost so much time on getting the bike better.
Also, when the bike was working ok, I asked so many times not to touch it anymore and try to have decent results, but they always had something new they wanted me to try even if it was for the Sunday moto’s. The only weekend my bike really worked well was at the MX of Nations in Italy in Franciacorta, maybe because I was the only rider representing the brand and they’ve put all the right stuff they had on this one shot”, added Bill.
Whatever anyone thinks about Aprilia, it’s a shame the Motocross experiment never really worked out as the sport needs as many manufactures as possible. Perhaps if they did listen to their riders more it could have been the trick to having a competitive bike. Unfortunately, we’ll most likely never find out now.
Article: Andy McKinstry
Pics: Nigel McKinstry
