Bimota SB 3 printing
The bimota of Klaus P.
A Bimota from the very beginning is not a motorcycle, it is an event. Such a tingling synthesis of vigorous Far East mechanical engineering and filigree Italo chassis art that mere mortal bikers got wet hands 20 years ago when they saw the in-line four-cylinder in red meshwork – the essence of all fantasies. Back then, Klaus Perner scraped everything together to get hold of an SB 3. It was like flying and driving at once.
The best was actually Irmi’s trip to Sweden in 1985. Or better, her stories about it. When she had to borrow her husband’s motorcycle, a tuned Bimota SB 3. Okay, not an optimal choice, she is happy to admitted now, but that she then practically uses mouth-to-mouth ventilation technology every morning at a campsite behind Stockholm Had to blow into the carburetor overflow hoses because otherwise the thing wouldn’t start to die, was too much after all. At this point, at the latest, I always roll over with laughter and want to hear the beginning. When she was standing in front of the garage with a tent, sleeping bag and blue garbage bags ready to go and Klaus offered her the alternative after night-long series of carburetor tests: she could either have a vote in which the machine pulls like an ox at up to 4000 rpm, but stutters over it, or one, at which it would go like a shot from 5000 rpm, but not at all below that. Every time I miss what Irmi decided to do, but she was in Sweden anyway. Somehow.
Klaus Perner’s Bimota. A legend that can determine the entire life of a motorcyclist. At least mine. I caught a glimpse of it decades ago and from then on the unshakable opinion that something like this had to be the ultimate fulfillment of all two-wheeled dreams, just before the beatification or something. Fast and beautiful like a Ferrari. At least. When Irmi told me the real story years later and that she had lost more nerve in Sweden than the Bimota PS owns, the whole thing only got more exciting.
And now I’m standing next to Klaus and the legend in the garage and am allowed to take part in the starting procedure. No, right now, without ventilation. Open the fuel tap, pull up the small choke lever on the carburetor and play around with the 20-year-old starter button with loose contact until the first scraping of the starter can be heard. With a snorkel, every sigh of revs penetrates through the four airy filters to the outside, the primary chain rumbling and the camshaft drive with a slight rattle. Umpf, off. Once again. Wiggle, play a little on the gas, brooam, now it’s there, turning right up to forbidden heights, choke back again, a little throttle, then finally it falls well into a quietly swaying idle. Only the big row fours of the glorious 70s can sound like this. In this case a mighty Suzuki GS-1000 engine, the crankcase of which squeezes through the holes in the narrow fairing. Underneath, self-confidently and only legible when tilted, the black lettering. BIMOTA. One of the first. After the KB 1 with a Kawasaki Z 1000 drive, the SB 3 was the second road machine produced in larger numbers in 1980 by the three inventors Valerio Bianchi, Guiseppe Morri and Massimo Tamburini from Rimini. In 1975 they began to transplant the new Japanese four-cylinder from their notorious wobbly chassis into super-fine, high-strength tubular space frames.
The motorcycle not only sounds like the seventies, it also smells like it. An indefinable breath of fuel, oil and warmed-up rubber. Okay, the ideals of beauty have changed a bit. The baroque rear over the thin 130 tires and panels in the style of Upper Bavarian accessories dealers were thought to be great up to the 25th birthday at most. But sponge over it. She willingly accepts the first small bursts of gas, sucking in the air with just as insane hissing as she later expels through the night-black four-in-one system. What an exhaust! Two great curves and the end of the axle again. It has to be like that!
Now it is ready to drive, Klaus pushes the handlebars into my hand: "All right?" The big moment. I am more excited than ever. “And don’t be squeamish. Turn it! She wants that. ”Okay, I’ll do it. For the time being, however, there isn’t much to do with shooting. Now it’s time to find your way around this thing somehow. On which it is not exactly according to the legend, but takes a lot of getting used to. From the deeply integrated sitting position, the hands feel uncomfortably far forward on the handlebars, the legs angled to the maximum for the hellishly screwed aluminum pegs. I still try to look a bit like late luck and roll onto the street with a quick prayer. Dear time! So this is the dream of two decades.
"Simple and puristic," described test editor H.-P. Easy something like that in MOTORRAD 13/1979, "built for fast cornering", and the posture even increases vehicle control. Well With a sonorous rumble, I roll carefully towards the Odenwald. The cladding towers up in front of me like a house, the upper edge of the window in the middle of the line of sight, the Suzuki round instruments underneath, a couple of wobbly switches and sunrises that weigh tons to move on the handlebars – the blissful seventies in full bloom. Suzuki at it’s best. But already on the artfully milled steering head, the museum-like Japan is over and the holy of holies appears, the essence of a bimota, so to speak: a fire-red, nine-kilo tubular space frame, ”made of 25 seamlessly drawn chrome-molybdenum steel tubes, which are welded together with enormous manufacturing effort have been. The front piece wraps around the supporting engine with twelve pipes, the rear one holds the huge, incredibly wide square swing arm with the rest, ”the test report noted. In addition, there were magnesium rims, a 38 mm Marzocchi fork and even a carbon central strut. And a workmanship more beautiful like the Venetian Doge’s Palace. The result: 210 kilograms of combat weight. A whopping xxx kilograms lighter than the series.
Things that I can’t really appreciate at the moment, because I’m first busy sorting through the fantasies of around two decades. Heaven knows what unbelievable I imagined. Okay, start over again. Dat is a steam engine! And it can drive, steer, blink, sound the horn and switch. Now just step on the gas and turn ?? as Klaus said. Enough with the paralyzed sneak.
After reading MOTORRAD 13/1979, Klaus and his brother scraped together every mark ?? "The machine just had to be bought!" But 19,900 marks was a lot of money? double the price of the series Suzuki. No matter. The brothers saved up wherever they could, dismantled the machine and picked it up from the off-road vehicle in Rimini, reassembled it in the living room and even broke it through the TÜV hurdles. It wasn’t cheaper in the end, but they’d tried. Only the holding turned out to be not so durable, as early as 1981 Klaus bought his own SB 3. Chassis number 268. One of a total of 402 copies built.
And I should turn it now! It should be able to withstand when it suddenly pulls loose from 5000 rpm, the engine suddenly lapses from the comatose babbling into that bright four-cylinder screaming, rushing to the next bend, and lo and behold – suddenly falls into any desired incline with incredible ease, is extremely present, almost sucking me into the silver monocoque stretched over the tank and rear frame, until I feel myself very close to this motorcycle, feel the engine throbbing almost painfully in the undamped stops, the now genuinely shameless tubes only make fun and this strange seating position all of a sudden really fits. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. It wants to be driven fast, wild and weird. Otherwise nothing.
At some point it wasn’t fast enough for Klaus. Back when the GSX 1100 came out with 16 valves, which completely bagged 100 hp, but the fat big block absolutely did not want to fit into the narrow lattice structure of the SB 3. Damn. That’s why Bimota later designed the SB 4, but Klaus wasn’t interested. Also cost 10,000 marks more. No, better refine a discarded 1000 series engine with the 1100 series Yoshimura boring kit and Hockle crankshaft. Hu! For a whole winter he worked on it, milled and filed, cutting out thicker seals, because otherwise the ragged pistons would crash against the valves. The kit wasn’t ideal. But brought pressure like hell. Only the creature no longer jumped because of the sheer density. And he did not allow himself to be voted on either. Now, of all times, when Irmi wanted to go to Sweden! Then came the idea of vacuum hoses. Blow in during a cold start and fool the carburetors into some kind of pseudo-pressure. Anyway, it worked, and Irmi roared towards the Arctic Circle.
I.Meanwhile, ch arrows more and more courageously through the Odenwald. There is little going on below 5000 rpm, even with the long-established series engine, but that doesn’t matter. "Hardly any other machine has ever been so much fun to drive," summarized test editor Leicht, "the motorcycle almost craves curves of all kinds." Right. Maybe Sweden was just the wrong destination. How easy it is to move now, comfortably and without a peep in the chassis, it sweeps over bumps of all kinds. Klaus has never been able to part with it. Only the Yoshimura Hockle stuff that was thrown out again. And Irmi got a 750 kawa for her birthday. I have to turn back, Klaus is sure to be waiting. Perhaps Irmi is at home now, just telling the story once more. And I finally know how she got to Sweden now. Below 4000 or above 5000 rpm?
Technical data Bimota SB 3
Engine: Air-cooled four-cylinder four-stroke in-line engine, two valves each, two overhead camshafts, bucket tappets, bore x stroke 70 x 64.8 mm, displacement 997 cm³, rated power 90 HP (66 kW) at 9000 / min. Chassis: Two-part tubular steel frame, load-bearing motor, Marzocchi telescopic fork, vertical of carbon strut with rocker arm deflection, double disc brake at the front, o 280 mm, rear disc brake, o 270 mm, tire size front 3.50 x 18, rear 130/80 x 18, wheelbase 1400 mm, steering head angle 66 degrees, caster 115 mm . Measured values (1979): top speed 225 km / h, acceleration 0-100 km / h 4.2 sec. Weight 210 kg with a full tank, construction period: 1979 to 1983, new price 1979: 19,990 marks.
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