1994 Bimota DB2

Over the years, I'd fallen in love with the motorcycles that Bimota has offered and always wanted one. When I graduated with my master's degree, I told myself I was going to buy a Bimota as a graduation present to myself. I was pretty familiar with the Ducati engines and working on them, and really loved the simplistic design of the air-cooled V2, so I decided the bike had to be an older DB model. Now, to decide which one.

Looking at the various Ducati-engined models and the current prices on used ones, I simply fell in love with the DB2 and its trellis swingarm. It looked really good, was much lighter than the SuperSport 900 that it borrowed its engine from, and they were reasonably priced (for a Bimota).



Almost every Bimota I see is some low-mileage, garage queen. This is not what I wanted, because I wanted a bike I was not going to be afraid to ride. I was looking for a bike that had high mileage or had been dropped and repaired at some point in its life. It didn't take too long, and I found this one in Texas (traded in by a guy from Louisiana).

Sight-unseen, I asked as many questions to the salesman as I could. One of the ways he described it made it sound perfect for me. He had said, "The paint isn't pretty, but it looks good from a few feet away." I struck up a deal on the bike and had it shipped to South Carolina. It was nerve-racking waiting for the bike to arrive and see just what kind of shape it was in. For ease in delivery for the freight truck, I had it shipped to Wade's shop, Specialty Steels, in the Donaldson Center in Greenville.

Wade let me know when it had arrived and was unloaded. He then also had let me know that he tried to start the bike, but he couldn't get it started.'



To make a long story a bit shorter, after some research, troubleshooting, and speaking with Jim Calandro (President of US Desmo and an owner of a DB2 of his own), I was able to determine that the choke on the top triple clamp was not connected because of the carb upgrade on the bike, and I also discovered that one of the ignition coils was fried. Yeah. So, just how was the dealer able to let me now it ran great? I can't imagine the coil mysteriously going bad while in transit. Anyway, I got a set of used coils from a Ducati Monster on eBay, replaced the spark plug wires with new ones, and she fired right up! And, man, does she sound SWEET!!!!



I was planning on riding the crap out of the bike. With the bad repaint because of a previous accident, I was not afraid of putting scratches on the bike. This was awesome! I even made arrangements with Jim that we had both of our DB2 bikes at the Ducks Fly South rally a few months after I'd bought the bike. The Ducks Fly South rally is a US Desmo function held by every fall in northern Georgia.














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