BIMOTA TESI

Strange that a firm capable of building some of the most highly regarded and downright beautiful machines of the 1970s and ’80s could have wobbled so royally in the ’90s.

But it was the trip down the so-far blind alley of pitting a pure engineering solution to front suspension against the cosmetic compromise of the established forks that lent the Tesi its screwy look.

A total of 417 were produced from 1990 to 1994. The Tesi was always the ” motorcycle of the future ” even though it plainly didn’t have one. Motorcyclists tend to be a notoriously conservative crew, while Bimotas tended to be expensive, adventurously styled and therefore a very acquired taste for most.

They were also required to be dribblingly beautiful and when they weren’t, people became openly contemptuous of them. The Tesi suffered this fate like the Yamaha GTS1000 after it (the latter was just as unsightly).