Bimota's back

Back when stock superbikes had stonking engines and shitty frames, Bimota created a neat little business for itself, housing those engines in good frames. But, when bikes started including handling as stock, the tiny Italian company fell on hard times. It tried some weird suspension, it made some Ducatis a little more special. Then, this year at EICMA, they rented a stand twice the normal size and showed up with 19 models. Wow. Some of those models are, of course, things we seen before. There's the 1198-engined DB8, the DB10 riff on the old, air-cooled Hypermotard theme and the hub-steered Tesi of course (now with cleaned-up looks), but now there's a DB11 too, powered by the Testastreta 11 motor that's in the Diavel and Multistrada. A Bimota with long service intervals, imagine that. Just in case you were worried Bimota had turned practical, they bolted a supercharger to one for 188bhp and called it the "VLX." What if you're a Bimota enthusiast that wants to ride off road? They fitted spoked wheels to a DB10 and called it the DBX. New too is the BB2 concept, which re-styles an S1000RR and an interesting take on the Multistrada, basically fitting the DB11 with flat bars and a really big fairing, plus design from the same firm that penned the BB2: sak_art design. Unless you're a wealthy bike collector with oddball taste, this is really just an opportunity to oggle how good steel trellis frames and swingarms look when combined with carbon fiber, minimal fairings and some lowercase Bs. gallery link