bimota
spirit
For more than 40 years, Bimota has designed emotions. Bimota Spirit is dedicated to collecting and preserving these "emotions,"—to be one of the stewards of the "spirit" of the company that built "no-compromise motorcycles for enthusiasts who wanted nothing less than the best!"...
Welcome to Bimota Spirit! My name is Bob Steinbugler and I began my relationship with Bimota back in the late 1970s. I have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge and experience working with these exceptional machines and offer my support to current and future owners of Bimota motorcycles. Bimota Spirit is the exclusive representative of Bimota in the USA and we offer new Bimota motorcycles as well as service and repair parts from our local inventory and our network of suppliers around the globe. We also have a significant inventory of modern and classic Bimota motorcycles for sale to existing (and former) Bimota owners, as well as to new enthusiasts looking to share our passion for the brand.
We have many resources to share with the Bimota community. We recently completed the first edition of our museum with examples of most road-going Bimotas - from the SB2 to the BB3 - as well as many historic photographs. We also have a very large database of information from factory manuals to magazine articles dating back over 40 years. As I have time, I plan to prepare features on the most significant motorcycles in our collection and post them to this website - as an archive to help preserve the remarkable accomplishments of the Bimota Company's legacy of innovation.
There is an obvious correlation between Bimota and our other motorcycle passion - Vyrus Motorcycles. Vyrus produces the most finely crafted works of motorcycle art that I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Vyrus has consistently evolved the hub-steering concept that Bimota pioneered with the Tesi 1D and offers a range of exclusive, hand-built models. Bimota Spirit is the USA representative for Vyrus and we have examples of all of their current products in stock - the 984 (Ducati 2-valve), 986 (Moto2 GP spec with Honda CB600RR) and 987 (Ducati 1198 4-valve.)
Credits. I often think of Bimota Spirit as a one-man show, and in fact, my passion for Bimota is what drives this effort. But I have a well-developed support network that makes the scale of this project possible. My chum, Johann Keyser, ace mechanic/fabricator/custom-builder, runs his own custom motorcycle shop (Moto Motivo) very near mine and he shares much of the Bimota Spirit assembly load with me. He has built Bimota Tesis, DBXs and a number of Vyruses recently. Visit his website, www.motomotivo.com to see Bimotas and Vyruses being assembled as well as many award-winning cafe racers that he produces. My long-time designer friend, Ron Smith, design collaborator and now moto photographer, works with me to design many of the paint schemes that we put on our bikes and has taken most of the excellent photographs that you will see throughout the site. You can see his work at rfoto. My son, Sean, has grown up in the Bimota world. He is now a mechanic/constructor and track tester. He built our first BB3 and has tested many of our Bimotas and Vyruses on racetracks. Next would be Camillo Sassano, my long time Italian friend, who helped me locate and purchase many of the older rare Bimotas in our collection. Without him the Bimota Spirit Museum would be half its size! While thinking of Italians, I would like to credit Gianluca Galasso, long time Bimota development rider, multi-time Italian road racing champion and very good friend. He has connected me to many resources in Italy as well as contributed greatly to my knowledge of Bimota history - and is the best suspension tuner that I have ever met! That gets me to the best - saved for last. My wife Gayle has supported this irrational, excessive behavior for more than 40 years. She gives me the freedom to work at this 60 hours a week, she helps with logistics at events and track days, she keeps me company when we visit the factories in Italy and tour on motorcycles, and she helped name the company, design the logo and is now illustrating some of our motorcycles to create artwork for the museum - Bimota Spirit would not be the same without her!
We would like to give thanks to Giorgio Sarti, author of Bimota - 25 Years of Excellence, published by Giorgio Nada Editore, for giving us permission to reproduce selected items from his book.