Check out the Lamborghini Caramelo superbike design concept

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This looks like a proper bike
Not so sure about the name though (what about Lamborghini Liquorice then?)

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Pilouil
Citroen C3 1.4 HDI 69.0424 bhp

Now that's more like it!

Much nicer than the Pagani crap

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That's sweet! The Lambo look transfers really well. Am not a biker, and the only bikes that ever got under my skin were Bimota. Mad machines with equally mad prices.
I thought they went bust a few years ago, but their website is still live - http//www.bimota.it/it/db10.asp

Updated December 30, 2012 at 8:43 PM

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I had a poster of the Bimota hub-centre steering bikes on my wall as a sprog. Think it was this one. I thought it looked superb - shame the tech never really caught on...

Having a quick look round their site earlier it looked like at least one of their current models has something similar?

I have little bike know how though so I may be wrong!

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I guess you can charge more for a Lamborghini than a Ducati, does look good though (and that's the limit of my bike knowledge).
Caramelo sounds like an Italian KitKat, so it'll be followed by Peanuto and, for the larger rider, Chunkyo

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In my day we called that medicine.

The problem with Bimotas is that the early bikes took decent engines and stuck them in decent a decent chassis because the stuff coming out of the mainstream manufacturers wasn't great. But as bikes got better, it got harder & harder for them to improve on the standard bike.

For example, there's a YB11 on Autotrader for £5k. It uses a Thunderace engine and even looks a bit like a Thunderace. It's slightly more powerful than a Thunderace and a bit lighter so it is a bit better. Or you could just buy an R1 for £3k which is even better than the YB11.

In some ways, Bimotas ended up being a bit like the Aston Martin Cygnet.

Updated December 31, 2012 at 8:15 AM

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According to Wiki - During the late 1970s, Bimota also helped develop and build motorcycles branded as Lamborghinis.

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You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.

The Vyrus has the cetre steering tech. It also seems to have antigrav tech too.

In the current Bimota range the Tesi 3d has it - apparently it was initially developed with Vyrus.

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Pilouil
Citroen C3 1.4 HDI 69.0424 bhp

Is there any benefit to the centre steering thing over just having front forks?

To the untrained eye it looks like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

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zedleg said...

Is there any benefit to the centre steering thing over just having front forks?

To the untrained eye it looks like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I guess it should lower the centre of gravity, concentrate the weight closer to it (as the front suspension is also moved to the centre of the bike) and possibly reduce the non suspended mass - at the price of a significant complexity though.

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Pilouil
Citroen C3 1.4 HDI 69.0424 bhp

Traditional fork geometry meand there's a trade-off between stability and turn-in rates. Also, forks ate flexible. Hub-centre steering helped overcome those things but are heavier, more complex and more expensive.

In the meantime, Upside Down forks gave 95% of the advantages with much lower cost.

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I think the wheelbase effectively becomes a bit shorter under braking (and cornering?) with forks, since they are raked and thus move the front wheel rearward under load. I believe you also get more dive with forks than you theoretically would with other methods.

Forks are a bit like the 911 engine position - theoretically it's not the best solution, but decades of refinement mean it works pretty well.

Updated December 31, 2012 at 12:53 PM

A million times better than the Zonda one.

But needs a V12 really...