When Kawasaki acquired its ownership interest in Bimota back in 2019, it was unclear where the storied Italian brand would go. Some light was shed on that at EICMA last month.
The new Bimota Tera was unveiled with an evolution of the unique front suspension design first seen on the Bimota Tesi. Apparently, severe steering lock limitations on the original design have been overcome, among other refinements.
The beating heart of the new, beautiful machine is none other than the supercharged Kawasaki H2 four-cylinder making a claimed 200 horsepower and 101 pounds/feet of torque.
The ergonomics are very much that of a modern cross-over, combining the upright nature of an adventure machine with superbike chassis components and engine.
Bimota has apparently kept wet weight to an extremely impressive 440 pounds, which means the production bike will be ridiculously quick.
We expect Bimota to provide additional information regarding pricing and future availability. Stay tuned.
Ok, someone has to ask……Dirck, you OK?
GENERALLY we don’t have to worry – it’s always slow around the holidays; Dirck takes a break basically.
Todd and Micks discussion about weight is correct, especially Todds last sentence on December 26. I wounder if part of the problem is that most riders do not go back in displacement to ride a smaller, lighter bike, and therefor never feel the immediate difference. The only place for weight is on an open go fast highway in a very windy day.
Where is Gilera? Four cylinder epitome of MV and all that bull..t like Bimota.
Call us when the Shuttle lands.
Ok then. I will wait for X-37 return. 2 years or thomething
eros ramazzotti is always cool
I still think a 250 to 500cc supercharged and counterbalanced single would make an awesome base to build a sport bike, an adventure bike, or even a sport touring bike with.
Bill, agree to some extent. A single would require a major counter balance effort. A twin is easier to balance. Normally, a naturally aspired 500 cc ICE provides around 40+ HP. A supercharged, blown, ICE could almost double this figure to around 80 HP. Weight could be managed below 400 pounds, maybe around 380? This would be an extremely flickable, fun, canyon carver with the right set of tires.
Come February you can buy a Ducati NA single that makes 77hp, 84hp with the racing exhaust, that is reported to weigh 333 pounds wet without fuel. It is closer to 650cc however. Why they lie and call it a 698 is beyond me.
Why bother with a supercharger and why hamper a motorcycle with so much weight?
Mick, you have a valid point. To me, like you have mentioned numerous times, weight is the key. When a bike weighs more, then more power is required to move it. I’m a light person, 135 pounds, probably 145 with my Aerostitch jacket and Shoe helmet. A bike weighing under 350 pounds is very lively with horsepower under 100. That is my ideal bike. Riding a Ninja 400, the 500 is a modest increase in power and drivability. Disappointing in many ways. Have not seen the weight of the 500, would presume not much of an increase since both have identical frames.
If you can’t pick it up and carry it at least 10 feet it’s too heavy and should never be built or only sold to those that prove they can lift and carry that sucker for ten feet with ease.
Reads a bit ridiculous does it not? Of course it does! “Light” is relative so unless you can easily lift and carry something it ain’t light enough. Mick ain’t buyin’ nuffin’ gnu.
So let it be written. So let it be dumb.
ORT
It depends on what you want a motorcycle for. The touring and the cruiser folks don’t seem very concerned about how much their bikes weigh. I’m a dirt biker first and foremost. I rode dirt bikes for decades before I ever bought a street bike. For me a motorcycle is a piece of sporting equipment. Like my golf clubs, skis, mountain bikes or whatever. A hundred extra pounds is not a rounding error. If you are shopping for a tennis racket. You are going to leave the ones that weigh a hundred extra pounds on the rack.
My attitude seem to be rare among the street bike community. Or the KTM EXC line wouldn’t be about the only street bikes where weight is taken very seriously. Since the death of the sportbike the street bike community has really turned a blind eye to the weight issue. You can pay extra and get more power, more ride modes, quick shifters, bigger TV screens and whatever comes next. But you can’t pay extra and get significantly less weight. Not unless you buy something like a Kramer and license it for the street. But those aren’t sold as street bikes.
Googled Kramer, never heard of the brand. Yes, it’s not a legal street bike, using a 700 cc single ICE. But, wow the weight, 276 pounds. This just proves the point that it’s possible to build a low weight bike. Yes, making it street legal will add more weight, probably around 50 pounds.
Most people don’t care about weight, hey, most Americans weigh over 200 pounds. But, for the few that do care there are few options. I have owned and ridden many bikes (I’m in my 70s), many over 500 pounds. The reason for the 360 pound Ninja is the fun factor. To me a low weight bike is more fun to ride. Different strokes for different folks.
Ort, you don’t need to pick it up but you do need to control a bike to get the most from it. The easier it is to control and maneuver, the more performance you can get out of it. What do you think is easier to ride quickly and extract performance from; a 75hp, 1690cc, 700lb “Fat Boy” or a 75hp, 690cc, 330lb “Duke”? I’ve ridden both and own the latter. There’s no amount of horsepower (or torque) you could give the 700lb bike to even get anywhere close to the performance. Less weight is the most precious performance commodity on a motorcycle, nothing else can make up for it.
Adding lights to a race bike adds less than ten pounds. Kramer race bike have a reputation for being robust race bikes.
My personal bike weighs around 290 ready to ride on the street and it has a luggage rack. It’s not rocket science. It’s just that the street bike community is very tolerant of heavy motorcycles. We are, all of us, the reason why we don’t get lighter motorcycles. People ride me all the time just for suggesting that things aren’t as cool as the ad copy would have you believe. You’ll never get better stuff if you ridicule anyone brazen enough to expect it.
Mick, you mention just adding lights which adds 10 pounds. But is this a legal street bike? Since the Kramer is a race bike, it probably does not have any emission equipment like a catalytic converter. Would you not have to add these and reset the fuel injection? Yes, I’m a strong believer in climate change, primarily reason for my Tesla. I love shifting and hate a one speed tranny.
“ Adding lights to a race bike adds less than ten pounds.”
Not DOT legal lights that a motorcycle company would sign off on or anyone would want to actually ride at night with.
Dirt bikes aren’t street bikes.
You can add enough lights to race off road at night with if you want to. Lights never stop getting lighter and brighter also. They just aren’t a problem.
As far as emissions go. You don’t have to pass emissions. You do have to pass the jugement of the person who is doing the inspecting, if any, for noise. That can be a problem if you are in to loud pipes. The loud pipe bone never grew in my head.
When I moved to New Hampshire they wanted me to add blinkers. I wasn’t very happy about that. But I had done that before on another bike. It’s not too difficult. There are annual inspections here and my bike passes every year.
You just can’t tell me that it can’t be done. I have done it to several motorcycles over the last thirty five years and there is one out in the garage right now. Kramers have street bike sourced engines so you don’t even need to upgrade the lighting coil like I had to do on my current bike. It has two 125 watt systems. One for the headlight and one for everything else. Old school headlights are 80 watt, 100 if you cheat with one that is illegally bright. Now the LED lights draw much less current. So you can get by with a pretty small system now days.
Yes Dave. DOT lights or beyond. Using the same bulbs and reflector shapes. Or now days DOT LED setups. And the bikes I have built have as good or better headlights than my off the rack street bikes do. Some of my off the rack street bikes have had very poor headlights.
And you are right. Dirt bikes are not street bikes. Dirt bikers demand higher standards. Nobody would buy a 300 pound dirt bike because it would be considered far too heavy.
I own an H2SX, and the engine is a marvel, and this is probably the same version of that engine. But I’m not sure it needs to be put into this platform. 200hp (or much more with a simple flash) is getting into the unusable range. That being said, the engine is a gentle pussy cat just riding normally. I also don’t see how they kept this thing at 440 lbs (wet). The H2 engine is a bit porky because of the extra supercharger hardware (intake system, impeller, planetary gear system, chain down to crank, etc) and metal (aluminum) airbox. Looks cool tho. I fear the pricetag.
This isn’t about a motorcycle. It’s about money. Those that can throw down the money on a bike like this without a care are the target audience. Doesn’t matter if is 50k, 75k or 100k. The attitude is, “I see, I want, I buy”. If you’ve never been rich, all you see here is an over complicated bike with a long wait for parts (if you can get them), that does nothing better than a 20k bike with a dealer and service dept. that’s close by. This is a bike is an attention getter built for those with FU money and it’s doesn’t matter that they’ll only put (maybe) 200 miles a year on it, they’re helping to keep the name BIMOTA alive. And thats a good thing. If you’ve got it, spend it! You can’t take it with you.
Agreed – I’m glad this exists and would love to see one on the road one day, but I know the chances of that are exceedingly slim.
I so want Bimota to be successful. Having experienced some great Bimotas from the early to mid 90’s, I want their legacy to continue and thrive. It’s so hard to see that with this bike. They tried. The colors are great, IMO. They are trying new things, which is good. But the execution is just unexplainable.
It’s lopsided. Look at the front/back pictures. The left side bulges out like it has a tumor.
The passenger seat is an after thought. Why even have it and the passenger pegs?
Added to that, where would a top case go? they offer side cases. A top case is narrower overall and better in many situations. But there is no structure to attach it to.
Why a front swing arm? It’s different. OK. But why? Just to be different? It already has a forced induction H2 engine, wasn’t that different enough?
So much history, so much potential. But, this is what they produce. Meh.
Massimo Tamburini, the “ta” in Bimota, unfortunately died in 2014. He’s not around to draw up a compelling design anymore. On of the reasons why Bimto was fun to watch was because Tamburini was a master designer. Tamburini made fashion. The bike you see here is a slave to current fashion. Current fashion seems to dictate that bikes that are not ADV bikes have to have a vestigial tail section. The tumor you are complaining about is the exhaust can. The tuck under exhaust is a current fashion that didn’t seem make the cut on this baby.
Bimota used to source compelling engines of the day to work with. Now they are joined at the hip to Kawasaki. So I guess this is what Kawasaki has by way of a compelling engine. I would call it a polarizing engine. But the street bike industry clearly has sub-zero interest in my opinion.
I’m in your camp on the front suspension. BMW made a better alternative front suspension a long time ago and a supercharged flog is not going to revive that dead horse.
In the end, Bimota used to gain attention by making far better than average products. Now it seems that they are just resorting to gimmicks. Wrap a gimmick chassis around a gimmick engine, make a low weight claim, paint it up in traditional Bimota colors and call it a day.
Bimota is dead. Long live Langen.
Once again Mick, you mix facts with your version of fantasy. The center hub steering that you seem to imply that Massimo Tamburini had nothing to do with, was in fact first used by Bimota in the 1990’s and has been refined since. Also, the aluminum and steel tube trellis frame is classic Bimota. Finally, Kawasaki and Bimota collaboration goes back to the 1970’s with the KB1 which used a Z1 engine.
I don’t understand Gary. I remember the Tesi. It came with a 904cc Ducati engine. I was a huge Bimota fan back in the day. Their stuff was always so nicely turned out. The Tesi didn’t really do anything for me back then. Whatever.
What I find odd about this bike is that none of the articles I have seen about it have any closeup photos. Closeups used to be the best thing about a Bimota article. You could get a good look at all the nice parts.
I suppose these things are Kawasaki’s premium brand now. This being a premium brand, it has all the exclusive content.
The “tumor” is the intake “scoop” – whether or not it needs one.
right , except maybe let the reviewers or whoever give it a ride before passing final judgement
Mick brings up some very good points. It’s harder to find the truly creative people in the design and technology sectors of motorcycles. That’s a weak statement, such as “it’s hard to find that one-in-a-million energizing person. Why aren’t there a bunch of one-in-a-millions, say, twenty ones-in-a-million?” Kawasaki and Bimota appear to not have that uniquely creative person/team on their staff. I’ve come from a company that also lacked creative personnel and the result was a whole lot of “look around, see what appears to be selling the most, steal that.” And we did, and we lost share, price, vibrancy. It’s not entirely the fault of executives, as they must pay bills, pay salaries, keep production lines running. But without true design and engineering talent, the existing average talent are too timid release a completely new design, especially in a market where beauty is so firmly established by past designs. Keep trying!
Both of these companies have world class creative and engineering talent. This and the origami faceted shapes of Kawasaki’s bikes are the result.
This design language isn’t new anymore. If it didn’t work, they’d have moved to something else but they haven’t. Some old (mostly American) guys don’t like them but clearly their target customers do.
If they offer a set of Ohlins forks as an option they might sell a few bikes.
The few bikes they sell will be 100% because of the suspension. If they did a conventional fork, everyone would just buy a Kawasaki.
Everything I’ve read about this and other alternative front suspensions convince me that they are superior to telescoping suspension forks in every way except for cost/accessibility.
Welp. I understand many think this Bimota is the answer to a question that no one asked, BUT aren’t all good products that way??
Off the cuff: the Polaris Razor – Ummm…isn’t that just a fany dune buggy?? The Huyabusa – Some here likely thought it had too much power. The Razor scooter, which according to Bob Moffit from Kawasaki, was originally designed to for warehouse workers to navigate quickly. Or Facebook – who the heck would wanna post pictures of the dumb chit they did everyday and wait for a thumbs up from “friends”?
You get the point.
With that being said…A Kawasaki H2 looks like a scary ride and a Police magnet license loser. BUT with upright bars, the whiff of an Adventure bike, and the whine of a supercharger – That H2-powered Bimota could be ALOT of fun.
I’m in the market for a Ulysses, so I’m too fringe for my ideas to be mass anyway…
Good luck to BiMoTa and Kawasaki!
Alternative front suspension and steering components. I applaud the creative thought but a regular steering head and fork tubes still seem less expensive and less moving parts. Yamaha GTS 1000 riders adore their machines and Yamaha had a 5 valve fuel injected sport touring motorcycle almost figured out, although a bit of a weird Ethel. Having a chain final might have been the downfall, considering Honda’s ST 1100 was the closest rival. Parker, ELF, and Bimota have been down this road before it just doesn’t sell to the general motorcycle public.
And it is now clear that BIMOTA has lost their way. This is a bike no one wanted from them. Such a waste.
Never met a Bimota owner but I think this will find plenty of takers among riders who can pay $50k+ for a moto-toy. The customer for wildly expensive hyper-sports dried up 20 years ago. Too old for the riding position and young people either can’t afford it or aren’t interested.
By the way. There is a guy (red hair) at YT, who buys broken superbikes (1000 cc of all brands) and restores them. Do not know what for. Just even don’t listen what he is talking about. Those wires. Engines are in good condition though.
no way the wet weight is 440 lbs
Once upon a time I was always very interested to see what Bimota had cooking. Now I wonder if Bi, MO or Ta are involved at all. This thing seems to check all the wrong boxes. Inline four? Yabba dabba. Front suspension that came and went decades ago? Forced induction and less power than some of the naturally aspirated rigs out there? Boasting about a very unimpressive weight figure?
Welcome to the warehouse of old discredited ideas. Can you play Pong on the dash? Rest in peace Bimota.
It’s sad that when 500GP became MoneyGP and caved in road racing twenty years ago that it somehow took the MOJO of brands like Bimota, Benelli and MV along with it. That’s a boatload of fail right there. It’s almost like someone patented the word beautiful and locked it away in a dungeon somewhere. They only seem to loan it out to Moto Guzzi once in a while.
It has an I4, particularly that I4, because Bimota is now majority owned by Kawasaki. As for old ideas, these bikes and ideas are revolutionary when held against the industry standards, regardless of when they debuted.
It’s also funny that you call the current MotoGP “MoneyGP” when in the old days that you pine for the only way to field a competitive team if not a factory yourself was to lease a Honda NSR500 (without suspension, brakes, or wheels) for $1m/season.
Thank you for this.
OK. Let’s just ignore how all the factory teams evaporated from AMA and WSB to fund MotoGP. Let’s ignore how sportbikes went from super popular best sellers to nearly gone. And now after twenty years of enjoying the attention of all the stolen fan bases MotoGP viewership is in decline. Why? They are aging out and all those kids who aren’t buying sport bikes aren’t backfilling their ranks.
Harley is having the same problem. Sportbikes are on life support.
Racing is advertising. It either works like it does for dirt bikes. Or it doesn’t. Road racing used to work very well. Now it doesn’t. The factories abandoned road racing’s grass roots and are now shoveling money at mutant aero motorcycles that you cannot and would not buy.
You’ve said it – marketing racing at grass roots level doesn’t work anymore. It’s only natural that brands would divest themselves of that spend. But how is that racing’s fault or the manufacturer’s fault? The tracks are still there. The motorcycles are still available. Maybe the answer is that fewer American’s who are interested in it can afford it anymore? If not the racing itself, the healthcare costs when the inevitable hospital stay comes along. Nowadays if a kid really hurts themselves, an under-insured family can be financially destroyed.
MotoGP still attracts viewership and it’s important marketing in global regions where people buy motorcycles in meaningful volumes, even if they aren’t buying sport bikes.
The motorcycle culture has been systematically attacked in North America, yes, racing included. But all the problems are not external to the sport. I stopped being interested in local roadracing when I found that trackdays were primarily seen by the industry as a farm system for racing, not also as a recreational outlet for sport-minded riders. Until a rider has actually spent some track time, it is not obvious just how fast/skilled even the local racers are. I got tired of the “slow group” being shortchanged on track time and used by racers who should have been in a faster group using us for “passing practice”. No fun sharing the track with someone who thinks they are the next M Marquez when there are no MotoGP scouts even in the country. So I kept my money in my pocket and sold my CBR600RR for an F6B Wing. haven’t been near a race for nearly a decade… but I have a MotoGP subscription. Insurance and licencing laws are the other places where N American riders have been abandoned by the m/c industry lobby.
I did not get how saddle bag on the right side fits above the muffler or there is only one bag on the left.
It fits. Not an adventure biker. Just sometimes on big scooters
Sorry. Not a fun of that bags. But it realy be a car in width.
Are you a bot? None of your postings in this thread make any kind of sense.
I am not. I’ll give you a rest. Sorry for disturbing. Not a modern CMS here. It even does not delete posts that someone do not want to see by others.
“I am not”
R2
Hmmmm…Given it’s purported weight the real question for a certain member is this:
Is this gnu Bimota a bAdvenutre, a sAdventure or a glAdventure motorbike?
Expiring minds desire to know. Oh wait! It’s not a two-stroke…
CyranORT de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac is a good name for this bike. That ugly nose.
This is the first bike in a LONG time that’s made me regret I didn’t make the correct life choices to be able to afford it.
More like you dodged a bullet, but whatever.
The main mechanicals are Japanese.
Buy a Concours, be happy.
Power to weight ratio is 0.45 hp/lb on this Bimotasaki. That is almost as high as the Honda CBR 1000RR Fireblade at 0.48 with 215 hp/443 lb. Kawasaki’s own supercharged Ninja H2R is 0.75 hp/lb thanks to 300 hp in a 400 lb. chassis. That suggests a tuner-dude in his garage could tweak the electronics and supercharger to squeeze out a bit more than 200 hp from this “modern crossover.” (Would a beak help?)
The practical question is “what for?”. Nobody in the world can harness a full 200hp on public roads. Also worth considering that this being a forced induction engine, its 200hp will not be like other bike’s 200hp. It’s already making 70lb/ft at 5k rpm on its way to 90lb/ft+. The ‘blade peaks at 74lb/ft all the way up at 11k/rpm, doesn’t even break 60lb/ft until 8k.
Point being, the CBR makes the big power up in a range where scarcely few will ever take it on the street, the H2 engine makes gobs of it at rev ranges street riders use all the time.
Absolutely pointless, a perfect motorcycle for rich pricks that don’t ride.
Shame on you Bob for saying such a thing. Thanks for the laugh 🙂
Literally the most “Stop liking what I don’t like!” post I’ve seen on this site. 😂
It may be light but it sure looks fat!
440 lbs, Bull shit. If EVERY single component was plastic.
I own a 1993 Yamaha GTS1000ae and have no issues with turning or ground clearance.
Interesting where it says “Apparently, severe steering lock limitations on the original design have been overcome, among other refinements.” unquote. Honda has the patent on the arched control arm, and simply bending it creates clearance issues when the bike is leaned in a corner, I wonder just how they did it?
While the power to weight ratio is surely impressive, that front suspension is certainly unique (however not original). I’m impressed that they were able to keep the weight so low with all of that structure.
“however not original”
WHAT? Bimota and a couple of others pioneered this tech. Look up the original Tesi. (IIRC there was also an Elf bike or something?)
Read all of my words: “while unique (but not original)” meaning we’ve seen it before and Bimota has used it before. Apparently they have improved it. It looks like it weighs a ton, but if the bike does actually weigh in at 440 pounds, then it has weight advantage.
I guess the head-scratcher here is how is a thing simultaneously unique and unoriginal? Especially when the design has been almost completely exclusive to Bimota.
As for the weight, we shouldn’t be surprised. This is what can be accomplished when money is spend freely on better materials. The assumption is that this will be very expensive, as all Bimotas are.
I did read all of your words (I didn’t even need to move my mouth). I disagreed with them.
Reading it a day later…I’m not sure that I even understand it.
The last I checked, a computer rendering of a design concept can weigh whatever you want it to weigh.