The top sportbike manufacturer and its top bike in terms of technology. Forget the VDub Bimota Tesi Millennium I get the same reaction when viewing it as when first eyeballing the F40. Too beautiful for words.
It's cool, but nowhere near as pretty as the Britten V1000. Different targets, and the Britten was a little more conventional, but definitely cutting edge.
in 1997, I raced against Andrew stroud at Daytona...he was on the britten! I have always been in love with that bike!!
I love the Tesi, would love to have one. I love just looking at the mechanics of it, would put it in my house!
That is so cool!! Shame Britten died so young. Although it would have never happened, I always hoped Harley would have collaborated with him to improve the VR1000.
I described the Tesi to non-motorcycle people as "moto porn" nothing is left to the imagination how it works. I love the mechanical-ness of the thing.
Not exactly a beauty but awesome cool... Almost got one few years ago, That bike still zero miles and I may get a shot one day.
I had to do a double take to see which was the front and which was the back of the bike. Pretty awesome though.
The one on ebay that got me rethinking about TESIs sold about a week ago... 40 grand. If you think about it; dirt cheap compared to a mass production "cast iron" Harley. And I own a cast iron Harley.
The history of that program was quite a story. Very cool MC. Had he not died motorcycle tech might have gone very differently.
I did Keith Code's school a couple of years ago (good, btw). I don't know his experience of the bike but he was full of praise for the design thinking. I think the Britten is also featured in one of Kevin Cameron's books. Cool indeed.
Get a copy of Tim Hanna's biography of Britten, written in full cooperation with his family. It gives tons of insight and history into how he worked and what motivated him. Also watch this, great footage of him creating and testing the bike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9N1gfLQ--k BTW the Tesi was the brainchild of an Italian graduate student (Andrea Merloni?) and this project was part of his thesis. The original prototypes in the mid 80's used hydraulic cylinders instead of the mechanical linkage the production bikes used in '91. Can't imagine what the slip-stick of a hydraulic cylinder and hysteresis of the fluid would do to feel, but I would imagine it would not be pretty. With modern electronic steering systems on cars I wonder if the technology could be developed so an electric actuator today could do the same thing. It could offer some packaging advantages for bikes outside of sportbikes as well.
A 3D with carbon Fibre wheels and bits just sold from an ad on ebay. BIN was 28k IIRC but it sold away from ebay. Probably 24ish ? https://ducatiwestlake.com/shop/bimota-tesi-3d-2008/ I should have bought it but recently dropped all my cash on other "essential" stuff. No regrets. Another will come along but it may take a few years.