Not sure quite what you’re looking at here" Neither were we when this brute muscled its way into our inbox. So we dug a little deeper.
Yes, it says ‘Aprilia‘ on the tin, but it’s not really an Aprilia. It just happens to be powered by a heavily reworked 998cc v-twin, taken from a crashed second generation RSV 1000 R.

This is a completely bespoke, hub-center-steered special?built by a guy named Shaun, in a shed in north England. Oh, and just so that we’re clear, Shaun doesn’t build bikes for a living; it’s his hobby.
?I’d never ridden a center hub-steered bike, and no-one would lend me one,? says Shaun, who asked us to withhold his surname for the sake of anonymity. ?I’d read quite a bit about them, and wanted to see for myself what it was all about…and I like making stuff.?
?Start to finish the project has taken three years?However, this includes an 18 month break, while I moved house and workshop. All parts, other than engine and some ancillaries, are made in my home workshop?which is just 18 feet square, but full of tooling.?
?Most of my machine tools were bought at auction and restored by me. My CNC mill I converted from manual to CNC about 14 years ago?most of the electronics are home made. Other stuff’s been collected over the past 40-odd years.?

?Some of my methods may seem unusual, but this is usually dictated by my equipment?or lack of. My philosophy is simple: make as many of the parts a...