EICMA: 2024 Bimota Tera

Kawasaki’s ownership seems to be paying dividends for Bimota, with the Rimini factory showing off its first-ever sportstouring model with dirt road pretensions. Christened the Tera, which stands for TEsi con Regolazione di Altezza (Tesi with adjustable height), the bike makes a showpiece of the innovative chassis and hub-centre-steering front end derived from the Tesi H2.

Bimota has long championed the Tesi’s hub-centre design for separating the front end’s steering, braking and suspension functions to provide better handling, particularly over bumps. For the Tera, Bimota has refined the Tesi H2 chassis, increasing steering lock to 35 degrees for greater flexibility and improving the front-end’s anti-dive characteristics – another feature of the hub-centre design.

The new chassis also provides a 52.5 per cent front-end weight distribution and enables ride height and ground clearance to be increased by 30mm.

That’s not all the Tera has inherited from the Tesi. Wrapped within the luscious machined billet alloy chassis is Kawasaki’s 998cc supercharged inline-four engine, with a very handy 200hp (147kW) and 147Nm on tap. The Tera also uses a full suite of Kawasaki electronics, including cornering management, traction control, launch control, ABS and a quick shifter.

In keeping with Bimota’s premium ethos, the Tera’s other componentry is suitably high-end. Brembo Stylema four-piston radial-mount calibers grab twin 330mm discs up front, with a two-piston caliper and 220mm disc at the rear. The bodywork is a blend of exquisitely made aluminium and carbon-fibre.

Suspension is by Öhlins: a TTX 36 shock at each end with full rebound, compression and preload adjustability. Tick an upgrade box and you’ll get semi-active Marzocchi suspension with increased travel – perhaps for that desert crossing.

Kerb weight is a claimed 200kg and the wheelbase is just 1445mm – more compact than luxo crossover rivals Ducati’s Multistrada V4 (1572mm) and BMW’s M 1000 XR (1547mm).

Two versions of the Tera will be available: a sporty road-biased one and another with hard panniers and dual-purpose tyres. And the price? No idea, but needless to say it won’t be cheap.