Tera for all terrains | Bimota's top shelf tourer gains a hint of high-speed off-road prowess

Bimota have given their Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX powered Tera a tickle for the new year, adorning the supercharged sports tourer with aerodynamic winglets and high-speed knobbly tyres.

• Related: Best adventure tyres as rated by MCN

Thanks to its chirping 998cc powerplant, the Tera boasts 197bhp at 11,000rpm – good enough to propel the 214kg machine from 0-62mph in just 3.5 seconds.  

Kicking off the changes with the rubber, the Italian firm have opted to spec the circa £33,000 bike with semi-off-road hoops to build on its dual-purpose nature.  

But they’re not just any old off-the-shelf item, as Bimota’s Chief Operating Officer Pierluigi Marconi told MCN: “We have 17in tyres that have been specially made for us by Anlas and are homologated for 270kph [168mph].” 

For reference, most 50/50 adventure tyres come with speed certifications of around the 100mph mark, such as Dunlop’s popular Trail Max Raid tyres, which come ‘T’ rated – allowing a max speed of 118mph. 

“For us, it is a crossover, not an adventure bike. This is why we chose 17in wheels. In our mind, it is to travel mainly on the road and sometimes a little bit of soft off-road – because of this we like to have a good tyre for both. That is why we had Anlas create these for us,” Marconi continued. 

“You can go to work, you can enjoy it with your wife, you can make a long trip, drive it in the city, it has luggage, it is an easy bike – sure it is a little expensive, but it is a bike to enjoy anywhere.” 

Moving on to the new aero and the Tera gains a pair of fixed front winglets – unlike the brand’s recently revealed KB998 Rimini homologation special sportsbike, which features adjustable aero for track based fine tuning.   

In line with its touring aspirations, the Tera feature carbon fibre body work to stave off the worst of the wind, despite its sit up and beg riding position. There’s also a 22-litre fuel tank on hand to sufficiently cover off continent shrinking mileage. 

In true Bimota fashion, the Tera uses a ‘Tesi chassis’, with telescopic forks replaced in favour of a hub steer and front swingarm system.  

These are completely independent of one another with the swingarm mounted directly to the main frame.  

Under compression, a linkage means that there are no trail changes, with the design also meaning that braking forces should act minimally on the suspension action, preventing dive (and lift under acceleration) and maintaining a consistent geometry.   

Away from the trick steering set-up, the Tera features premium hardware from the likes of Brembo and Öhlins, with superbike spec Stylema calipers gripping a twin 320mm disc arrangement up front, and a matching pair of TTX36 nitrogen gas charged shocks at the front and rear. 

If the standard suspension equipment from Öhlins isn’t quite up to scratch, there’s also the choice to spec semi-active Marzocchi units from the options catalogue.

On the rider aids front, the tourer makes use of Kawasaki derived electro-trickery inluding cornering ABS, lean sensitive traction control, launch control, cruise, an up/down quickshifter and more.