Every year, the Quail MotoFest (formerly known as the Quail Motorcycle Gathering) features the same ten categories. They also have three rotating featured classes – this year the classes were:
1. Tribute to Yoshimura
2. Celebrating 45 Years of the BMW GS
3. The one I was most excited to see: Italian Innovation by Bimota
I’ll share more about the other bonus categories later but for today I want to focus on the Bimotas. I considered entering my Tesi 3D that I was riding up but I figured:
a.) there would be cooler Bimotas at the show anyway
b.) mine is “beat up” compared to low mile examples as there’s lots of rock chips/scuffs/the other stuff that happens when you ride a bike and from my experience the Quail judges reward minty low mile bikes. No worries there (and I completely understand why) but I figured it’d be better for me to just ride up, enjoy my bike for what it was built to do instead of entering it into the show and just display it front of our tent as it still gets plenty of attention.
I led a group ride from LA to Carmel and back on my Tesi – the way up included a brunch stop at the Cuyama Buckhorn!
There were were almost twenty bikes in the class, plus Iconic had two Bimota Tesi 3D Final Editions in front of our tent on display.
…plus a lovely RC30 that my buddy Bill rode up with us!
Here are the Bimotas that were on display and potentially open to be judged to win in the category!
1. 1987 Bimota YB4-R – this was the first Bimota with an aluminum frame, and it was ridden to the Formula 1 World Championship by Virginio Ferrari. More photos and information available here on Bimota Spirit’s website.
2. 2011 Bimota DB8 Oro Nero – ths first production bike with a carbon fiber frame and swingarm. The second “Bimota Bible” states that just ten of these were built, though they state the production run was between 2013-2015. These feature the Ducati 1198 motor with approximately 170 horsepower…and curb weight was claimed to be just 350 pounds! That’s basically waht my Tesi 3D weighs but this has almost twice the power.
3. 2020 Bimota Tesi H2 SP – Bimota Spirit is run by the father-son duo of Bob and Sean Steinbugler, and they sometimes build special versions of production Bimotas. This is the “SP” (Super Potente), which gets a supercharger upgraded and ditches the usual tricolore sticker livery of the stock bike.
4. 2008 Bimota Tesi 3D – owned by Mark Ellsworth. I’ve written about these a ton already due to my ownership of the Final Edition so I’ll spare you for now but let me know if you have any questions! Mark’s bike is for sale for $45k, I don’t know the mileage but I have his number if you’re interested.
5. 2008 Bimota Tesi 3D – owned by Ross Mullins. I realize these look very similar but they were next to each other and I just wanted to present the bikes in order.
6. 1988 Bimota YB5 – owned by William Hixon. Iconic sold this bike on our auction site in 2023. It was the last of the Tamburini-designed Bimotas and a rare one that offered a passenger seat. It utilized a Yamaha FJ1200 motor putting out 130 horsespower, and at 463 pounds (dry) the bike weighed 55 pounds less than the corresponding FJ. Motorcycle.com says that the “YB5 was tagged as the fastest, maddest, most expensive hyperbike on the planet when it was rolled out in 1987.”
7. 1982 Bimota KB2 Laser TT – owned by Adam Cecchini. Iconic sold this bike on our auction site and you may remember a photo I took when Adam and his dad picked it up from his with a unique tow rig! The KB2 was supposedly Massimo Tamburini’s favorite of his Bimota designs, it saved 60 pounds over the bike that donated its motor (the Kawi GPz550) and it was the last Bimota design that was available both as a kit or a complete bike. Just 177 examples were built. Of that small number, only 62 were the up-spec Laser TT which got slightly different fairings (no openings for the engine cases, larger air intakes for the oil cooler) and plated alloy rotors. Despite the diminutive size and weight, the Laser has a 5.8 gallon fuel tank – good for a claimed range of 284 miles! But that’s just about the only convenience you get – mirrors and turn signals were supposed to be provided by the importer and often weren’t. The fuel gauge and sidestand warning switch in the GPz dash do nothing here, either. But this bike was all about going fast – Cycle magazine said it “might be the quickest vehicle over a twisty road we’ve ever tried,” and “this isn’t a road test because the Bimota KB2 Laser would make a mockery of road test vocabulary.”
8. Bimota DB1 – owned by Adam Cecchini.
9. Bimota YB9SR – owned by Adam Cecchini. Adam also bought this bike from us and then found some additional bodywork that he had repainted:
10. 1992 Bimota YB8 – owned by Jonathan Madonia. “Clint Eastwood’s publicist bought this 90s Bimota YB8. Gulf Miage’s Harley Cluxton III also owned it before Ferrari engineer Andy Falbo made it wall art. Now, it’s being restored.
11. 1995 Bimota YB9SR – owned by John Mardesich.
12. 2020 Bimota Tesi 3D Final Edition – owned by Mike Candianides. Normally, a Tesi 3D FE should look like mine and be mostly white. But as noted above, Bimota Spirit will sometimes mix things up and they created a red version, green version, and black version of the Tesi 3D Final Edition from some of the last remaining stock. The black one was the last new one sold in the US and it was actually in front of our booth during the show (shown near the top of this post). The owner is a friend of mine who sent it to Iconic for us to do the break-in service and take care of some model-specific issues that I’ve discovered during my 18k miles of ownership.
13. Bimota V-Due – owned by Bimota Spirit, more photos and information available on their site.
14. 1981 Bimota KB1-A – owned by Bimota Spirit. It was fun to see this with the bodywork off, it really just feels like an engine with as little as possible around it. A period Cycle world review notes that it weighed “just 425 lb. dry…lighter than most 500cc bikes.”
15. 1974 Bimota YB1 – owned by Bimota Spirit. This is 1 of 12 examples and the model was Bimota’s first chassis kit built for racing purposes. More photos and information available on the Bimota Spirit website. “Bimota produced a sales brochure for these kits, and this is the first evidence that Bimota intended to enter into the motorcycle business (having previously been Tamburini’s hobby working out of the Bimota Heating and Air Conditioning company.)” Kits were available for both the TZ250 and TZ350 engines and I thougth the bodywork was fascinating.
The class winner was the YB4-R raced by Ferrari:
Which one is your favorite?