A few weeks ago, I picked up a Bimota Tesi 3D Final Edition – and it’s the first motorcycle I’ve ever bought with zero miles on it. That meant I had to break it in.
Did you miss Part 1? You can check it out here.
I have to admit that I I had already covered ~600 miles and done the break-in service before I wrote Part 1 of this story, though if the timing was different I probably would have gone with a suggestion made by commenter Wheelz270 – Pat McGivern’s “hard break-in.” But alas, I did not do that. Instead, I babied it.
First step – remove the protective wrapping!
The second step was to remove the exhaust baffle to hear what the bike sounded like both ways. I ended up keeping it out. At the end of the video, Daniel says something to the effect of, “you can’t even hear it over that.” He’s referring to the turn signals as for some reason, the Tesi emits a digital beep when the turn signals are on. It’s very odd – I’ll record a separate video of that for you later.
The third step was to finally add to the starting “mileage” of 0000.2 kilometers!
My first ride was actually to a Harley-Davidson event – they were showing off the new LiveWire S2 Del Mar. Some interesting bikes showed up (check out that CAKE), though the Tesi definitely got its fair share of attention.
Quick tangent – the Del Mar looks much more interesting to me than the Livewire S1 does thanks to the street tracker vibe. Quick specs are 440 pounds, 80 hp, and 0-60 mph of 3.5 seconds. Of course, the one spec everyone wants to know with an electric bike is range, and Harley says this’ll get 100 miles in the city (so a lot less on the highway). The Launch Editions were $17,699 (they’re serialized and come with their own paint jobs/wheel designs), while the regular model is targeted to have a $15,000 MSRP. We’ll see when they come out!
Photo from LiveWire
The Launch Edition (first 100 bikes) sold out pretty much instantly, and you can sign up for the waitlist on Harley’s site. Amusingly (at least to me), my Bimota is hiding in the preview image for a video next to the waitlist form when you scroll a little down Harley’s page.
Speaking of range, I found myself getting about 35 mpg with the Tesi 3D during the break-in procedure. The tank is 4.2 gallons and the reserve comes on with 1.2 gallons left, so I usually got the low fuel warning light around 105 miles or so.
My riding with the bike most days isn’t particularly exciting – just a pop on the 405 freeway to Iconic’s hangar at the Santa Monica airport. But each commute ends up putting a smile on my face!
It wasn’t all perfect – one main issue was that the suspension was way too soft. Iconic was scheduled to have Dave Moss come by for a suspension set up day, so I figured it made sense for him to work his magic on it. He seemed to be excited by the idea:
Dave also recorded a video of him working on it that’ll go on his site, and I’m looking forward to checking that out:
Adam and I decided to take our Bimotas out for a Sunday ride with our friends – I took my Tesi 3D and he took his Tesi H2. Our buddy Ron joined on his ARCH KRGT-1 and his wife kindly hosted us at his place for a mid-day snack. Motorcycling has introduced me to some wonderful people over the years.
My 3D felt much better after the suspension had been stiffened up, but I still wasn’t able to wind it out to redline.
Photo by Nathan May
I tried to put ~500 miles on it in a week so that I could break the motor in, get a service done, and ride it up to Monterey for the Quail Motorcycle Gathering but I just couldn’t manage enough spare time to make that happen. So I left the Tesi at home and took the Megamoto up PCH instead. It was a nice reminder of how much I love that bike.
Back in Los Angeles, I commuted with the bike a little bit more to get the necessary miles. I took Vy out to dinner on it once but she hated the passenger seat so there won’t be much more of that in her future. At least her helmet matches the bike quite well?
600 miles in, the Tesi gets its break-in service. Now I finally get to rev it out!
If you find yourself wanting the Tesi experience, we’re going to have one of the first 3Ds (#5) over on Iconic this week! Here’s a sneak preview just for you Bike-urious readers. To be frank, if I knew this bike was going to be available a couple of months ago, I would have bought this one instead. Woe is me and my first-world problem. But now that means you can buy it instead – you’ll spend less than what I did and I think the early bikes (called the Concept Limited Edition) look better. They’re less comfortable (aggressive clip-ons versus a handlebar) but I don’t know if that matters too much as long as you don’t plan on commuting with it like yours truly.
Continuing the Bimota theme, we recently sold a Bimota KB2 (supposedly Massimo Tamburini’s favorite of his Bimota designs) over at Iconic and the wonderful father-son Cecchini duo came to pick it up with an awesome Porsche tow rig that also happened to have a Desmosedici on it. It was an incredible sight, and I’m glad the bike went to a good home. They came to pick it up a couple of days before the Quail, and both bikes ended up at the show (both the Cecchini fellows are judges at the Quail).
Now it’s time to actually wind the motor out and see what the Tesi 3D Final Edition is supposed to be like…