Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128343
w heth er bott o m four o r The replica (foreground) and the real thing (bae:kgrouhd). midd le fou r. But for street use , a bike that I co uld sho rt -shift into t hird for the first tw o lefts of the trio leading o nto t he Misano back straight, then into fourth just before the t hird (and fastest) one , befo re just about grabbing fifth then braking fo r t he long left at t he e nd, is a way overgeared bike . It is much better to fit a 4ST rear spr ocke t and throw the current 42T o ne in with the race exhaust, as an option. Or would they charge extra for that, too? The stock Suzuki e ngine feels like it peaks at aro und 10,000 rpm , just when the shifter light on t he dash flashes before the ve ry early revlimite r ar rives at just abou t 10,300 rpm. Considering t hat the o riginal SB8K prot otype had a soft-action cuto ut fixed at I I,500 rpm , this price tag of both SB8Kvariants hard to jusseems unduly pess imistic even if presumtify. Given how much Roberto Com ini has ably done in the interests of reliability. already spent so far bringing back Bimota Some 1200 revs worth, though? That from the dead, I think he was badly advised seems an awful lot, and it presumably only in positioning these bikes pricewise in the adds to the que stio n of whether or not the marketplace. Much better to tum a page in gearing needs sorting. the troubled, but still evocative, com pany's That's also quite certai nly the right history by creat ing the Go bert Replica and expressio n to des cribe the Santamonica then offering it for, at the very least, the version of the SB8K, which, it turne d o ut, same price as the Mondial Piega - and had only been finished off that morning and preferably for the same price as the MV was completely unsorted ; the moment I 1000. O n that basis, this pair of re born rode it down pit lane was the first time it Bimotas are presently loo-pe rcent overhad moved under its ow n power. That priced. It wou ld be nice to be proved being the case, Strada & Co . might at least wrong , but Bimota may struggle to succeed have had a stab at adopting the same susin sellingall 200 bikes they're trying to move pension settings as on La Gobert, which at those prices unless they discount them. was pretty well set up and offered good There's a limit to the number of dedicated ride quality combined with excellent com "bimotist i" with long memories and deep pliance from the Paiolis at the track-day pockets prepared to pay that sort of money speeds I was riding it at. Instead, the 43mm for a yesterday motorcycle - especially O hlins race forks t hat rep lace t he Paiolls on where there are so many other rival bout he Santamonica (why?) were set brutally tique bikes they can spend their bucks on. stiff, ye t w it h alarmingly insu fficient The prior ity for Bimota is to turn that rebound dampi ng, which made each of the page as soon as possib le and start looking handful of laps I covered on it a lottery on forwa rd, rather t han back. That me ans whether or not I would lose the fro nt end . focusing quite correctly o n the 1000D8 With insufficient track time to even begin Ducat i desmodue-powered DBS sportbike the long dialing-in process, let's just say due to be launched at Intermot. that this is a work in progress. For my 40 But it's the next bike along that repregrand in Eurodollars , I'd certainly want my sents Birnota's way back. I have seen the purchase to be better than excellent, and styling drawings for the Bimota DB6, the this isn't yet. company 's future superbike powered by And that's the key issue with this c1earthe Ducati Testastretta 999 R motor created out sale of all Birnota's yesterdays, because by automotive stylemaster supreme there's no getti ng away from the fact that Giuglaro Design. This machine is due to be this is a 4-year-old superb ike racer-w ithlaunched at the 2005 Milan Show, and lights and the fact that the world , and espeplease believe me when I te ll you tha t it's cially the level of technology in the World the single most beautiful, most innovative Superbike paddock, has inevitably moved and most desirable motorcycle with a Von in that period , makes the very steep twin engine produced yet - anywhere. It is in every way a true Bimota, harkening back to the company 's heyday by com bining trend-setting styling with leading-edge engineering, but with a Desmo V-twin engine fitted, this bike is set to be an authentic successo r to Ducati's seminal 9 16/99 6 "ico n" bike. Roberto Comin i's main o bjective, thus, must be to clear the decks at Bimota and lay the gro und for the company's true re birth. The bike will be perfectly capable of www.cyclenews.com selling in the thousand s rather than the hundreds, even at Bimota-esqu e price levels. The best thing I can say to demonstrate its worth is that Massimo Tamburini, creator of the Ducati 916 and MV Agusta F4, wou ld have been proud to create this motorcycle, which, considering he's one of the founders of Bimota (as in Bianchi, Morri and Tamburini), not only says it all but brings us eN rather neat ly full circle. CYCL E N EWS • SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 39