The DB1 was the quintessential Bimota, packaging a reliable Italian powerplant into a lightweight package with excellent handling… Wait, what? Actually, in spite of what you might expect, the belt-driven, SOHC Pantah engine is very reliable when properly maintained, and can be tuned to make good power. Sure, the 75 claimed horses don’t sound like…
Although it’s nearly twenty years old now, it’s likely very few people would realize that this Bimota SB6R is anything other than a modern motorcycle: while many 90s designs have quickly become very awkward or dated at the very least, it’s clear Bimota knew what they were doing when they styled this thing. With Italian…
Update 2.21.2016: We last saw the LoudBike DB1 SR listed in October of last year. Back on the market with an opening bid of $16k. -dc We featured this bike a while back and my post generated a bit of, ahem… Controversy in the comments. Mainly because one of our readers felt I was possibly…
The Bimota SB6 was one of the Rimini-based company’s best sellers, with 1,700 built, including 600 of the more exclusive SB6R models like this one. Powered by Suzuki’s GSX-R1100 engine and five-speed transmission, it was a whopping 90lbs lighter than the donor bike and, with top-of-the-line Paioli forks up front and a shiny Öhlins shock…
The Bimota VDue was an ambitious project from the start. Of course it incorporated Bimota’s usual jaw-dropping bodwork draped over a stiff, lightweight frame and top-spec suspension components. A 300lb, carbon-fiber dream-machine in patriotic red, white, and green paint. But the real centerpiece was a direct-injected, 500cc two-stroke v-twin of Bimota’s own design, a clean-burning…
Introduced in 1994 and weighing in at just 403lbs dry, the Bimota YB11 was a claimed 35lbs lighter than the Yamaha “Thunderace” that donated its powertrain, which hardly seems worthy of the name “Superleggera” but the difference between the two bikes is pronounced: the Bimota is sharper, more agile, more aggressive. It also helps that…
The idea behind the SB6 is classic Bimota: take a dead-reliable, honking big Japanese engine and wrap it in a sexy, lightweight frame, drape with carbon bodywork, and fit top-shelf suspension at both ends. Unfortunately, by the mid-1990’s, Japan had well caught up to the Europeans in terms of handling and, although their bikes sometimes…
Although they built their reputation around their race-spec bikes, Bimota also built plenty of street-biased bikes. There’s obviously no real racing class for a bike like the Bimota YB5, powered as it was by Yamaha’s 1188cc FJ1200 engine and 5 speed transmission. But while it may not have been eligible for any race series, the…