Legendary Italian brand. Some interesting bikes? Anybody have any first hand experience with them? Would one be mad to buy a secondhand one and attempt to ride it?
Depends on which engine is in the model that you like. I have only ridden one (can't remember it's number) that was built around the TL engine. It was certainly an interesting experience and the bike had a lot of different characteristics than the factory 'Zuki (a whole sh!tload lighter and with much faster handling,) but the dealer network is sparse (only 7 in the country) and parts are choke expensive. With that said, though. The TESI 2D looks really cool and I'd love to see how the front AND rear swingarm thing feels.
Your probably ok as long as they are the japanese engined models.(YB=yamaha,SB=Suzuki,KB=Kawasaki,DB=Ducati) Although I have read that they tried and get fancy with different parts of the fuel and engine management, and actually made some models more unreliable. I love all the SB's! I think you might actually find that the cheaper the model(now) the more reliable it is. strange.
A good friend of mine has one. Here are some pics of it! However I do not know much about it as he would- here is what he told one one time: "The bike is a 2000 Bimota SB8R - Bimota built the trick frame/body/suspension and Suzuki donated the motor out of TL1000R. If you look directly underneath the middle of the gas tank you will notice the rear shock linkage and the bottom of the shock, the point of the bike was to get as much weight as possible over the front wheels to keep the front wheel on the ground - it doesn't work! It was built for World Superbike racing. The two things sticking out of the gas tank are ram-air passages, from the front of the fairing through the gas tank to the airbox underneath." He posts on here from time to time. I would tell you his name on here, and he would probbly be all for it, but I don't think its a right thing to do without his permission. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
This is the one I dig. Kinda looks like my Brutale but it aint cheap! Image Unavailable, Please Login
There are some Bimotas on sale in Switzerland pretty cheap. It is tempting to own something so exotic and rare, but the whole hard to replace plastics things scares me.
this is the most critical comment made thus far. the body work is unobtainable for the most part...a crash forever commits you to a naked! as far as exclusivitiy, i never really considered any bimota as exclusive except the failed v-due which actually had a proprietary engine. all others use motors that will not really excite other than the push they create...nice rides that need more italian motors!
Great bikes! lotsa$$ though. Most came with the Ducati 900cc V-twin others had the Yamaha 1000 cc 4cyl. Now they come with Both Duc & Suzuki engines if I remember correctly. They are one of the few bikes I've never had the chance to ride.
At 49 I'm too old to ride bikes like that anymore...that's why I now own an American Ironhorse LSC chopper...like Kimi, Schumacher and Trulli I go for the rumble and cruise of the big American V-Twin engine...for high speeds I stick to sports cars and sedans such as my Ferrari and M5...
Way overpriced bikes usually built to the standard Bimota formula: 1 x generic engine from a major manufacturer. 1 x pile of rare, irreplaceable body work (that rarely looks that great). 3 x the price of the bike it got the engine from. 0 increase in performance. Unless you just have a crazy itch to brag to your friends about paying triple what they did for a bike that doesn't perform as well. The only interesting one was the V-Due because it was a direct injection two-stroke and IIRC, they never worked the bugs out of it.
Well you can say the same thing about a custom chopper or a handwound Swiss pocket skeleton watch. The rarity would be a major virtue in itself. Otherwise nobody would buy, Wiesmanns, Morgans, Panoz etc.
I did some work on an SB6R...it was a an interesting bike and cost more than I was making a year at the time, but it was the best sounding Suzuki I have ever ridden. Larry
i had a v-due,well i had two has the first one stopped after 100miles and they gave me another,the second one started doing strange things and they had that back two,nice looking bike and great handling but the thing just would not keep going.
I love the V-Due concept, plus a good looking bike. Too bad they failed to actually produce anything more then street legal prototypes.