1997 Bimota YB11
Miles: 8,700
Asking: $9,900
Where: Craigslist, Willow Springs, Illinois (Chicago area)
SELLER
The Ferrari of motorcycles, Bimota is a hand built Italian motorcycle that used the best components and materials available at the time for suspension and parts including carbon fiber when it was considered exotic. Hard to believe this is from 1997! Powered by the 145 hp Yamaha 1000 Thunderace motor which offers reliability and parts availability. Very fast, even by todays standards. This is a near mint example with 8700 miles. . Has a Nitron rear shock, comes with the original shock and many spare parts both mechanical and bodywork. Truly a stunning piece of motorcycle art. Please feel free to call or text to set up an appointment to view.
708-3FIVE9-501SEVEN.
RSBFS
We’ve written up the YB11 before, so if you want the deeper dive on the model, the naming convention, and why the Superleggera name fits, that’s a good place to start. Short version: this is the last of the YB line, powered by the Yamaha YZF1000R Thunderace engine, wrapped in Bimota’s aluminum beam frame, and built to weigh less than the donor bike despite making the same power. Roughly 650 were built total (some sources cite 600, with the gap likely coming down to a small second batch Bimota completed after their 1999 financial troubles using leftover parts), so a clean one on Craigslist is not something you see every week.
We’ve actually seen this exact bike before too. RSBFS featured it last August at an asking price of $13,500. It’s back at $9,900 now, a meaningful drop worth noting.
The seller’s “Ferrari of motorcycles” line is doing some marketing work, sure, but it’s not far off. These were roughly $30,000 bikes when new, nearly double the price of the Yamaha they borrowed the engine from, and buyers paid for a hand built aluminum frame, Paioli suspension, and Brembo brakes rather than aftermarket Yamaha panels.
Bimota ownership isn’t always as simple as the “Yamaha reliability” pitch suggests. Tad flagged this in his own YB11 writeup: he wasn’t certain whether the YB11 shares the same maintenance quirks as Bimota’s SB6R, where jobs like a front sprocket or clutch slave swap mean pulling the engine, and he’d recommend checking with a specialist or the forums before assuming this is cheap to keep running. Parts can be a genuine bottleneck too.
Long-time readers might remember the debate this exact model kicked off in the comments a few years back. j.b.21 made the case for why aluminum frames became the obsession they did in the 80s and 90s, tracing it back to an era when manufacturers were racing each other on chassis and swingarm philosophy as much as horsepower, with Bimota sitting at the top of that particular hill. Brian pushed back a little, pointing out that aluminum isn’t inherently superior to steel (Ducati won plenty of World Superbike titles on a steel trellis), and that Bimota’s own history is a mix of real engineering brilliance and real financial chaos, the V-Due being the most infamous example.
At 8,700 miles this one’s clearly been ridden some, not a zero-mile garage piece, but the seller’s claim of near mint condition and the inclusion of the original stock shock alongside a Nitron upgrade suggests someone who’s kept this bike properly sorted rather than just parked it. Spare mechanical and bodywork parts sweeten the deal further, since sourcing YB11-specific pieces isn’t always easy.
Worth a call if you’ve been circling this model, especially at a price that’s already come down once.
Would you run the stock shock or keep the Nitron bolted in?
Good luck to the buyer and seller!
