bimota
spirit
Welcome to Bimota Spirit!
For more than 50 years, Bimota has been designing emotions. And for the last 46 years, we at Bimota Spirit have been 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!"...
My name is Bob Steinbugler, founder and co-owner of Bimota Spirit, an avid Bimota enthusiast since I began my relationship with the brand back in the late 1970s. I started Bimota Spirit to share the vast amount of knowledge and experience that I have accumulated working with these exceptional machines and to offer my support to current and future owners of Bimota motorcycles. ​I am extremely pleased to welcome my son and now co-owner, Sean, into the Bimota Spirit world. Sean has been associated with motorcycles since he was 4 years old, is an accomplished mechanic, custom designer/builder and track rider, and has the passion and energy to continue growing Bimota Spirit, and serving our Bimota brotherhood for hopefully another 50 years!
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As we continue to evolve and increase the scope of what we hope to provide as Stewards of the Bimota brand, we have divided our activities into three separate efforts: the Dealership, the Atelier and the Museum.​
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Bimota Spirit Dealership:
Many of you know that Bimota was purchased by Kawasaki in 2020, and this began a new phase in its history. We are pleased to announce that Bimota Spirit has again been appointed the official Bimota dealer for the USA, this time with the benefit of offering 50-state legal Bimotas homologated by Bimota USA. With this recognition for long-time service and increased responsibility, we have opened a showroom space in the ArtMoto complex in Raleigh, NC where all of the current Bimota motorcycles are on display. We will continue our on-line sales through our website (For Sale - Current) for those customers who are not local to North Carolina and will ship new Bimotas to all 48 contiguous states (and will find a way to get them to Hawaii and Alaska if the opportunity arises!!) We also offer parts and service support, for not only the new range of motorcycles, but where possible, all the way back to the earliest Bimotas. We have a large inventory of parts and a worldwide network of relationships to help find parts that we do not have in stock.
Bimota Spirit Atelier (artistic workshop)
We maintain our passion for Bimota motorcycles, from the very first YB1 through the Ducati-engined (and one BMW) motorcycles of the 2000s until 2020. Sean will lead the business of restoring and servicing older Bimotas, offering some for sale (For Sale - Vintage) and placing some into the Bimota Spirit Museum. We will also continue to customize Bimotas, again for customers or the Museum, and build bespoke Vyruses.
[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 official USA representative for the Vyrus company and currently have examples of all of their current products in stock - the 984 (Ducati 2-valve), 986 (Moto2 GP spec with Honda CB600RR), 987 (Ducati 1198 4-valve), and the most extreme - ALYEN (Ducati Panigale 1299-R).]
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Bimota Spirit Museum
This collection of motorcycles, photographs, art, magazine articles and memorabilia has been my passion since I purchased my first Bimota, a Tesi 1Dsr, in 1992. My wife, Gayle, and I have recently created the Bob and Gayle Steinbugler Motorcycle Foundation, a non-profit corporation to ensure that the Bimota Spirit collection will remain intact and continue to grow. While the physical Museum will remain available to visit in Raleigh, North Carolina, we are investing heavily into the "virtualization" of the Museum contents. Our goal is to make all that we have collected accessible remotely, allowing us to share the history and innovative accomplishments of Bimota with a Global audience. We will continue to display items from the collection at significant motorcycle events such as Concours d'Elegance, lend parts of the collection to other Museums, and work with Universities to share the breadth of Bimota innovation with students.
[The new non-profit structure means that we welcome any tax-deductible donations (monetary or physical) and any volunteer work to help us expand the awareness of Bimota accomplishments to a much larger audience.]
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We hope that separating our efforts this way will allow us to focus on these clearly different missions - that all serve a common goal. Our passion for Bimota and Vyrus is unwavering and continues to grow!
Bob and Sean
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Credits. I often thought of Bimota Spirit as a one-man show (prior to Sean joining me), 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. I already mentioned my son, Sean, who has grown up in the Bimota world. He is now managing an increasing portion of the business of Bimota Spirit in addition to being a mechanic/designer/constructor and track tester. 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 custom bikes and has taken most of the excellent photographs that you will see throughout the site. Together we also design and produce monograph books about many of the most iconic Bimota motorcycles - so far we have the Bimota SB2, DB1, Tesi 1D, and DB7 as well as the Vyrus 986 and 987. You can see his work at rfoto. 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 significantly smaller! 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 50 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, is now illustrating some of our motorcycles to create artwork for the museum - AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - she has graciously permitted me to donate our Bimota motorcycle collection to this new non-profit Foundation, to be sure that what we have built together over 50 years will remain intact long after we are gone! 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.