The Bimota Tera was first shown as a concept at the show this time last year, although then all we could see of the new model were some shadowy teaser pics and a model showing how the frame and suspension would come together. Today, though, we can share with you the finished product, live and direct from the exhibition floor in Milan.
Visually, the new bike has some stylistic nods to the Japanese brand that supplies its 999cc, 197bhp, 101lb-ft powerplant. From the shape of the headlights to the distinctive ‘Z’ branded tail light that looks suspiciously like the item found on the Kawasaki Z H2 hyper naked machine. Parts bin delving aside, the rest of the bike looks great, with a mass-forward design that seems to place the rider behind a wide and expansive frontal fairing, complete with a handy-looking screen that may or may not be adjustable - it’s tricky to tell from the images.
The real talking point with this bike, though, is that funky frame and Tesi front end. It’s the first time we’ve seen the Tesi system on anything other than a performance naked or sports bike and, interestingly, Bimota is billing this as more than just a sports touring machine. It seems that the Italian marque is looking at this as a performance crossover motorcycle, with significant amounts of on-road performance and some (although probably not much) off-road road ability. This theory is further backed up by the images on the Bimota website showing two distinctly different machines. One, a racy red number, on traditional sport touring tyres, while another bike, shown in a khaki green colour, seems to be utilising much more heavily grooved rubber. The khaki bike is also wearing fairly rugged-looking adventure-spec panniers, just the kind of thing you’d need for an on and off-road adventure. The luggage may be ADV-spec, but the wheel sizes most definitely are not, with 17-inch wheels featuring at both the front and rear of the bike.
The engineers of the new Tera have though been keen to make sure the overall handling of the bike is nailed on, and have created it to have a 52.5 per cent front-biased weight distribution, something they deem to be the magic number for a 1,000cc crossover machine.
Suspending that mind-boggling front end is an Ohlins TTX 36 nitrogen gas-charged shock with a piggyback reservoir, with another acting on the rear wheel. Front-wheel travel is pegged at 114mm, while there is 135mm available at the rear. There is an optional semi-active suspension system from Marzocchi that can be specced with the bike, boosting the wheel travel to 145 mm at the front and 165mm at the rear.
The braking system on the bike is provided by Brembo, which is no real surprise, and it features the KIBS ABS technology, as found on Kawasaki’s other sports and performance bikes. The front brake features 4-piston Brembo Stylema calipers, and dual semi-floating 330 mm discs, while a 2-piston caliper and 220 mm disc work together on the rear wheel.
With this bike only just having had the covers pulled off, there is little else we can glean in terms of the price or expected date of delivery in the UK. For more information, speak to your local Bimota dealer (lol) or maybe write a letter to Santa and see what he has to say.
