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…
Bimota made their name building lean, spare, race-oriented bikes with only the barest nods to streetability. So the DB3 Mantra was a bit of a left-turn for them, as it was purely meant to be a road bike and had no track pretensions. Unfortunately, released from the requirement to make the bike aerodynamic for speed…
Here is something a bit unusual, a pre-bankruptcy Bimota SB3 that looks like it was actively ridden. Bimota was founded on the idea of taking an existing bike and making it better, with particular focus on the frame. The SB3 debuted in 1979 and while not as dramatic looking as the SB2 it was derived from, the…
Prior to April of this year we hadn’t seen a Bimota YB5 pop up for sale since 2009 so of course now there is a second one, and instead of being far away in New Zealand this one is a bit closer to the RSBFS offices, with a location in Laval Quebec, Canada. The YB5…
Introduced in 2008, the Bimota DB7 is yet another collaboration with Ducati and has been one of their most successful bikes in terms, not only of sales numbers, but in terms of function. While they’ve always offered on-paper advantages over the bikes from which they borrow their engines, many Bimotas, right out of the box,…
Bimota’s BB3 is only the third collaboration between the Bimota and BMW. This is likely because, for most of BMW’s history, Ze Germans produced engine and drivetrain combos not really suited to the sort of lightweight sportbikes Bimota generally builds. The BB1 was powered by BMW’s Rotax single from their and, like most Bimotas was…
Only rarely seen outside Japan, the market for which it was exclusively designed, the Bimota YB7 is like a 3/4 scale YB4. The bike is based around the FZR400 powerplant, so it’s obviously no real powerhouse, with a claimed 65hp from the 399cc liquid-cooled four. But that just means you get a sweet-handling, four-cylinder exotic…
1997 Bimota V-Due on eBay On paper, it was everything that we all asked and begged for… a roadgoing version of the 500cc two stroke monsters that we watched Mick Doohan and crew wrestle around the track in Grand Prix racing. Unfortunately two strokes, for all of their performance legend and lore were burdened with…