la vyrus in english.......

[philippe-bimotaclubfrance 0]

First there was the Tesi 1D, in the early-1990s. With its complex
‘alternative’ front suspension, the first Bimota Tesi was a magnificent
display of Bimota’s prowess with advanced motorcycle technology. The
swingarm style front suspension separated steering and braking forces
and supposedly, eliminated dive under hard braking, and offered
enhanced stability in fast corners. Riders complained that the system
did not offer enough feel. And the front suspension assembly was hugely
complex, expensive to manufacture and tough to maintain. So yes, Bimota
only sold a very few of these bikes, and that was the end of it.

Now
it seems the Tesi 1D is reborn – as the Vyrus. A Rimini, Italy-based
company, VDM, which is owned by former Bimota mechanic Rodorigo
Ascanio, continued development on the original Tesi, and the result is
the Tesi 2D, or the Vyrus 985 C3 4V. Says Rodorigo, ‘It’s our objective
to try to persuade people to take a fresh look at two-wheeled chassis
design. This is my challenge!’ Ahem.

The bike uses the Ducati
999R’s powerful, 150bhp V-twin engine, but the two are very different
in terms of handling characteristics. Rodorigo says, ‘We made a bike
that is a very stiff structure, where nothing moves except the
suspension and the tires. And we produced a steering linkage with fewer
bearings, so as to give it more sensitivity. You must feel the front
tire as if the front axle were in your hands. All this influences
handling and makes the bike steer much faster, especially with the
short wheelbase. It’s like a 250cc GP bike in terms of geometry, but
it’s also completely stable in a straight line. Even if you try to make
it shake by moving the handlebars, you can’t. And we have no steering
damper fitted; that’s a Band-Aid for a wrong design!’

[philippe-bimotaclubfrance 0]

"Look around here," says Ascanio Rodorigo with
a laconic wave of his right hand at the glorious array of priceless
motorcycles inside the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. "Any of these
bikes made in the past 50 years have all been built the same way, with
the same design and the same faults. It’s our objective to try to
persuade people to take a fresh look at two-wheeled chassis design.
Questa e la mia sfida—this is my challenge."







Rodorigo, 43, began working for Massimo Tamburini
at Bimota back in 1983–’84, before Cagiva boss Claudio Castiglioni
lured away the "ta" in the company name to create such works of art as
the iconically beautiful Ducati 916 and MV Agusta F4. But if his former
boss is the Michelangelo of motorcycles, Rodorigo is the Picasso, as
one look at his latest example of deconstructed cubist two-wheeled
sculpture, the Vyrus 985 C3 4V, will confirm. Like the Richard
Rogers-designed Pompidou Art Center in Paris, which displays its pipes,
drains, conduits and heating ducts on the exterior of its walls for all
to see, the surreal Vyrus wears its technology on the outside. As the
21st-century evoluzione version of the avant-garde Tesi 1D streetbike
that Bimota built from 1991–’93, the Vyrus is a technological tour de
force that is even more minimalist and aesthetically appealing than the
slab-sided Tesi.

Gaze closely at the Vyrus and every 10 seconds
yields another trick part or artistic feature—the gold-anodized track
rods operating the car-type hub-center steering, or the skeletal
CNC-machined aluminum frame spars, the stress paths of which were
carefully plotted by finite element analysis, then the metal around
them removed to save crucial ounces. Or the heavily revised steering
linkage with the bell crank positioned on the front of the right frame
spar, and the gently curved alloy drag link operating the rod that
activates it, helping to eliminate some of the copious change in
direction the original Tesi design incorporated, and restoring some of
the filtered-out road feel. Or … you get the picture. This is an
exquisitely conceived, finely detailed and brilliantly executed
motorcycle, a genuine work of modern art.







Taking to the Barber racetrack aboard the Vyrus
was, for me, a two-hour trip down memory lane. What memories? Why
travel all the way from England to Birmingham, Alabama, to ride a
motorcycle hand-crafted in Rimini, Italy? Because the museum holds the
original works Tesi 1D Superbike I raced for the Bimota factory in ’91
and ’92. "My" bike may now be decorated in the colors of Cristiano
Migliorati, who raced it for a season in the Italian National Superbike
Championship after I was through with it. But the chance to compare and
contrast two such radical examples of alternative thought was too good
to miss—especially as this particular Vyrus was destined to find a home
in the U.S.







Hopping aboard the Tesi brought the memories
flooding back, and underlined just how much smaller and more purposeful
the Vyrus is. Its riding position is comfortable and comparatively
normal, without your hands being too close together as on some other
hub-center bikes due to there being no fork or triple-clamp assembly.
The absence of any bodywork other than the intricately designed
headlamp fairing adds to the sense of minimalism, but not at the
expense of adequate wind protection at the 140 mph achieved down
Barber’s short straights.

Though based on the Bimota Tesi, the Vyrus is built by a separate
entity and there are at present no plans to import it to America. The
company does, however, also build a two-valve version that is being
sold through Bimota's dealer network as the Tesi 2D.











Everything about the Vyrus seems refined, even
delicate, and at first I struggled to reprogram my senses. But after a
handful of laps gradually picking up speed, it suddenly clicked—and I
remembered the mindset you must adopt to get the best out of a
hub-center motorcycle: Hold the bars lightly and stay off the brakes
until what seems suicidally late. The separation of steering from
suspension is the biggest asset of such a front end. There’s
essentially no dive, and the suspension eats up bumps even when you’re
leaned over on the brakes. This bike is so confidence-inspiring and
well balanced there seems no limit to how hard you can push it in
corners. Well, there is one: Such treatment wears out the stock Pirelli
Dragon Supercorsas very quickly. After around 50 laps, the front tire
was well worn and the rear not much better.







Stability and ride quality are surprisingly good
for a sportbike. The springless Double System air shocks are well set
up in their standard settings, and are for sure more compliant than the
stiffly sprung Öhlins we had to run to stop my Tesi racebike from
weaving at speed. The Vyrus is easily flicked side to side, whereas the
Tesi was hard work at speed. The radical steering geometry, with an
18-degree effective head angle and 3.8 inches of trail (adjustable 6
degrees upward from there, and from 3.1 to 4.1 in. of trail), allowed
it to change direction faster than most bikes of comparable size. Yet
that steep head angle hasn’t resulted in significant instability,
beyond one brief flick of the front wheel when I hit the only real bump
on the otherwise billiard-table-smooth Barber surface accelerating out
of the left horseshoe leading onto the back straight.OK, so how did Rodorigo and company succeed in
reinventing the Tesi? "In fact, we started again with a clean sheet of
paper," he replies, "and decided we must completely forget all our
experience of standard motorcycles, and think only of the suggestions
offered by Bimota in arriving at the best solution. We made a bike that
is a very stiff structure, where nothing moves except the suspension
and the tires. And we produced a steering linkage with fewer bearings,
so as to give it more sensitivity. You must feel the front tire as if
the front axle were in your hands."







They also changed the center of gravity, raising
the engine 40mm (1.6 in.) higher than on a 999R and 50mm (2.0 in.)
higher than on the original Tesi. Weight distribution was also an
important factor. At rest, the Vyrus has a 53 percent/47 percent
forward weight bias, but with a 150-pound rider aboard it’s
50/50—perfectly balanced.







"All this influences handling and makes the bike
steer much faster, especially with the short wheelbase," Rodorigo
continues. "It’s like a 250cc GP bike in terms of geometry, but it’s
also completely stable in a straight line. Even if you try to make it
shake by moving the handlebars, you can’t. And we have no steering
damper fitted; that’s a Band-Aid for a wrong design!"







The only real downside to my reacquaintance with
the Tesi concept in Vyrus guise was the bike literally hadn’t run
before being shipped to the U.S. As a result, the 999R motor wasn’t
dialed-in, and needed a series of stops to remap and retest before we
got it running somewhere close to OK. Rodorigo and his crew normally do
this before delivering a bike—the Misano racetrack is just a stone’s
throw from their shop—but getting the bike crated for its overseas
voyage prevented them from doing so this time. The problem is Ducati
won’t authorize Magneti Marelli to release the access codes for the
stock 999R EFI, which would enable Vyrus to remap the engine-management
system for the much larger airbox and asymmetric exhaust system. Hence
the need to fit an all-new ECU, the work of a small electronic
specialist in northern Italy called Microtec, which seems to have done
a good job.

Once we got it dialed I could ride the meaty
torque curve of the short-stroke desmo V-twin and use its appetite for
revs to hold a gear, shifting just six times per lap. Nice. With a
claimed dry weight of 345 pounds and a reputed 150 rear-wheel
horsepower at 10,500 rpm, the Vyrus is pretty invigorating to ride,
with zestful acceleration and no real vibration from the engine even at
five-figure revs, in spite of its application as a totally integrated
chassis component.







For many proponents of two-wheeled alternative
thought, the issue of finding a better way to hang a bike’s steering
wheel has been a matter of debate ever since BMW gave us the first
telescopic fork almost 70 years ago. Apart from the
brave-but-ultimately unsuccessful 1993–’94 Yamaha GTS1000 with its
James Parker-developed RADD front end, it’s been a regrettable fact of
commercial life that no major manufacturer—except, inevitably, BMW—has
dared to be different. The perceived wisdom is that nothing works
better than a conventional fork, and anyone trying to prove otherwise
is foolish, deranged or stubborn.







The Vyrus 985 C3 4V is Ascanio Rodorigo’s proof of the fallacy of this delusion. It not only looks good, it works.-MC















2006 Vyrus 985 C3 4V

Price

MSRP: Approx. $68, 825

Engine

Type: 1-c, 90-degree V-twin

Valves: desmo DOHC, 8 valves

Displacement: 999cc

Transmission: 6-speed

Chassis

Weight: 345 lb., claimed dry (157 kg)

Fuel capacity: 3.8 gal. (14.5L)
Wheelbase: 54.1 in. (1375mm)

Seat height: 32.7 in. (830mm)

[Auré11 0]

Savez-vous si Vyrus existe toujours? Le site ne présente pas de changement depuis un bout de temps!

[RenNa 0]

Auré a écrit:

Savez-vous si Vyrus existe toujours? Le site ne présente pas de changement depuis un bout de temps!

Je veux mon neveu !!!

Tiens:
http://picasaweb.google.com/oooRenNaooo/VyrusWorldDucatiWeekEnd2007Rimini

[Auré11 0]

Sais-tu s'ils continuent avec le moteur de la 999?

[RenNa 0]

Auré a écrit:

Sais-tu s'ils continuent avec le moteur de la 999?

Plus que jamais, c'est leur dernier modèle en date, la 985 C3.
En même temps ce qui est marrant c'est qu'ils vendent beaucoup de machine sans liquides, car il y a beaucoup de "collectionneurs" qui achètent ce genre de machine. Juste pour exposer dans leur salon

[Auré11 0]

Ils auraient pu passer sur le 1098...

[RenNa 0]

Auré a écrit:

Ils auraient pu passer sur le 1098...

La 1098 est sortie l'an dernier.
Il ont toujours également le 1000 2 soupapes.
Aucun intérêt de passer au 1100 ou au 1098, surtout que pour toucher des moteurs à des prix intéressants ils ne peuvent pas être au top de la maj moteur Ducati. En plus ils ne vendraient pas plus avec les derniers moteurs Ducati, on achète une Vyrus plus pour sa partie cycle que pour la dernière maj moteur Ducati. En plus un 1000 ou 1100 DS, et le moteur du 999R ou 1098, franchement y a rien d'obsolète
De plus ils ont une bien meilleur injection que le Magneti Marelli des Ducati.

C'est drôle à dire, mais Ducati c'est du prêt à porter, rapport à Bimota ou Vyrus qui font de la haute couture (poids/puissance, finition etc... Ducati est battu... sauf niveau tarif).

Il ne faut pas oublier que pour des petites structures, le coup d'un changement de modèle, c'est une homologation en plus à passer, et c'est déjà impressionnant ce qu'a réalisé Rodorigo Ascanio pour arriver à ses homologations (d'où l'importance du travail effectué au niveau de l'injection, car Ducati reste fermé sur le sujet).

[Supaskunk 0]

RenNa a écrit:

Il ne faut pas oublier que pour des petites structures, le coup d'un changement de modèle, c'est une homologation en plus à passer, et c'est déjà impressionnant ce qu'a réalisé Rodorigo Ascanio pour arriver à ses homologations (d'où l'importance du travail effectué au niveau de l'injection, car Ducati reste fermé sur le sujet).

Qu'est-ce à dire?

[RenNa 0]

L'injection (boitier soft etc...)

[Auré11 0]

Comment font-ils pour se fournir? Ces moteurs ne sont plus produits, non?

[RenNa 0]

Auré a écrit:

Comment font-ils pour se fournir? Ces moteurs ne sont plus produits, non?

Si si. Même dans le catalogue Ducati.