VOL. 51 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 5, 2014 P75
vious owners just weren't up to
the job of harnessing the perfor-
mance of the new Bimota Super-
bike, with the near-terminal chat-
ter almost certainly caused by a
combination of too stiff a struc-
ture, and too hard a compound.
On a hot Italian summer day, it
certainly shouldn't have been an
issue related to temperature, but
it felt when riding as if the front tire
just wasn't getting hot enough.
We tried reducing front tire pres-
sures, at first slightly, then to the
extreme – all to no avail.
So based on that experience,
any Bimota customers out there
who experience the same thing
may want to give it a go with a dif-
ferent tire.
After all, having spent the
huge $53,500 hit for what is in-
deed an exquisite two-wheeled
mechanical masterpiece replete
with beautiful componentry and
dripping with technical allure,
forking out another one percent
of the purchase price for a set of
tires that'll allow you to ride the
bike with some degree of safety
in anything approaching anger, is
a small price to pay for peace of
mind.
And in order to get a true evalu-
ation of the new Bimota Super-
bike, that's what I had the factory
do, returning to Rimini two weeks
later for a full day's ride on the
very same BB3 I'd sampled at
Nuvolari. But this time it was fit-
ted with a set of Pirelli Diablo Su-
percorsas.
Heading for the same stretch
of highway up in the hills that
Massimo Tamburini himself used
to use to assess and develop his
various creations (and especially
the Ducati 916 and MV Agusta F4
in all its various incarnations) took
care of a suitable test venue.
Okay, now what's it like?
Well, the first thing to say is
that the BB3 feels quite different
to ride than the BMW it shares its
engine with. In the intervening
few weeks, I'd taken the precau-
tion of having a quick blat on my
mate 2012 S1000RR, and the
Bimota definitely feels smaller
and narrower than the German
bike. In spite of having the same
Poor conditions and an ill-handling
motorcycle forced us to leave
the Circuito Tazio Nuvolari and
reschedule the test for another day.
