VΨRUS Moto 2 Race Bike

News at this month's Verona Bike Expo was that VΨRUS motorcycles has produced a Moto 2 race bike for this year's Moto 2 race series.

For those who don't know who VΨRUS is, it is a boutique motorcycle manufacturer out of the coastal Italian town of Rimini who produce hand-built hub-center steered motorcycles. Until now, all of their models used either Ducati 4-valve superbike or Ducati 2-valve supersport engines. The company was born out of the ashes of the collapse of the Bimota factory (one of the many collapses). Design plans and technical staff were available at the time to advance one of Bimota's most ambitious projects, a hub-center steered superbike.

Now Bimota too has risen from the ashes and is also producing a hub-center steered, Ducati engined superbike. This leaves VΨRUS in a difficult situation. There are now two boutique companies based in Rimini who both produce a Ducati-engined hub-center steered superbike, based on the same original design.

Producing a Moto 2 race bike using their hub-center steered designs is a logical and extremely ambitious move for VΨRUS. It proves that they believe in their hub-center steered concept and are willing to put their ideas to the ultimate test. All Moto 2 race bikes must utilize the same Honda 600cc engines and engine management systems. Thus chassis, setup, aerodynamics, tires and rider ability are the deciding factors in who wins or looses. This makes Moto 2 the perfect format for advanced and alternative chassis designs. It is interesting, and somewhat disappointing, that no one else competing in Moto 2 has taken the opportunity to think out of the box. More kudos to VΨRUS for being the first.

To top it all off, VΨRUS has now announced plans to put a street-legal version of this bike into production by September this year! It should be amazing!

With the introduction of MV Agusta's F3 last November, Triumph's already successful 675cc Daytona, and now the VΨRUS 600 - middle-weight sports bikes are where all the most exciting developments are occurring right now. This is logical given the weight and handling advantage a middle-weight has over a full-sized 1000cc plus superbike. The only advantage a superbike has is in horsepower, but this is hardly an advantage on normal roads when you are comparing say 130hp against 190hp. With 130hp you are drinking from the garden hose on full whereas with 190hp you are drinking from a fire hose. Either way you can't drink all that water, but the fire hose will make you a lot more than just wet.

Thanks to MotoBlog.it for allowing the use of this photo.