Bimota’s formula for success involved plentiful, reliable engines supplied by outside manufacturers, top-shelf braking and suspension components, frames designed with pure performance in mind, all wrapped in sleek, often wildly-styled bodywork. The use of well-developed and widely available engines meant they managed to survive much longer than most other boutique motorcycle manufacturers and their style…
Update 3.14.2018: Turns out this one sold faster than we could post it. Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc A modern literbike is a relatively peaky beast: chasing horsepower without increasing displacement means ever-higher revs are required, and a six-speed box makes sense. It’s telling that bikes like today’s Featured Listing Yamaha’s FZR1000, one of…
It’s hard to find an FZR 1000 that isn’t as cool as a snow cone in a blizzard, but the ’89s and ’90s really speak to me. Maybe it’s the Bike of the Decade designation for the ’89s. Maybe it’s the Ow01-aping bug-eyed fairing. Maybe it’s the sub-three-second 0-60 and 170 mph top end. Probably…
Bikes today are faster, lighter, better-handling, and safer than ever before. But while there have been huge advances in terms of electronics and the materials used to build them, they use basically the same layout and suspension since motorcycle design became codified sometime in the late 1980s. The familiar telescopic forks are most definitely a…
By the end of the 1990s, it could be argued that Bimota was basically irrelevant. After all, the whole point of a Bimota was simple: take a powerful, reliable engine from a bike from an established manufacturer, then slip it into a stiff, lightweight frame with the best suspension money could buy at both ends,…
Considering that Bimota is still… in business [was going to type something else, but had second thoughts as maybe “thriving” is a bit too strong a word] it’s a little surprising that some of their older offerings are so affordable, considering their exotic looks, extreme rarity, high specification, and performance that will at least keep…
In the wonderful world of Bimota, the first letter of the bike designation always represents the manufacturer of the engine. In the case of this YB11, it is Yamaha. This is the 11th model of Yamaha-powered Bimotas, one of the most potent bikes Bimota has developed, and the last of the Yamaha-Bimota series ever produced.…
With lightweight bodywork held on by just a few bolts [note the one-piece tank-and-tail unit] and a plastic fuel cell, the Bimota YB8 used plenty of tricks learned on the racetrack and was pretty far ahead of its time. Based on the previous YB4 and YB6 but powered by the larger FZR1000 engine, approximately 250…