When Bike Swaps Go Bad. No 1: Colin Edwards

2002 Honda VTR1000 SP1 SUPERBIKE TO 2003 Aprilia RS3 Cube MotoGP

olin Edwards arrived in MotoGP in 2003 as reigning World Superbike Champion, his second title. He’d been riding the Honda SP1, still his favourite ever racer, and joined Aprilia to ride the three-cylinder Cube– unquestionably the worst bike of his career. 

Two problems. “The biggest was I came too late – got to the party at two in the morning. I was 29, so I had a lot of ingrained habits from riding Superbike, on a heavier bike understanding weight shift and balance. When you come to a GP bike all the changes you are accustomed to making are magnified by a million on a lighter bike with more horsepower. Trying to change your riding style when you’re 29 is a lot more difficult than when you’re 20.”

The other was the bike. “The Aprilia was born bad. It was a damn car motor, they’d chopped in half, the chain force was wrong … everything was f*cked up. They tried to make it work: It was the future of that time: ride-by-wire, nobody had it.”

His best result was a single sixth, his distinguishing moment jumping off at more than 100mph when the fuel tank caught fire between his knees. The next year he moved to Honda and got on the rostrum. Careers can recover.

Words Michael Scott  Photos 2Snap, Gold and Goose