Bicycle manufacturers grouping together with car and motorcycle manufacturers to produce limited runs of exclusive and expensive bikes is nothing new, but it’s something that was particularly prominent at Eurobike this year. The problem is that most of these collaborations turn out to be rather disappointing.
Be it bikes designed specifically to be accessories for multi-million pound supercars or just reputable names being licensed on less than inspiring bicycles, we’ve got five for you to ponder below.
PG Bugatti bike
Bugatti’s brief was clear: produce a bike that could be sold as an accessory for those purchasing its £2.5m Chiron hypercar. The result is what Bugatti claims is the lightest flat handlebar hybrid out there — with builds coming in as low as 4.9kg.
To achieve this weight German bike builder PG sourced some of the world’s lightest components from the likes of Tune, THM and Lightweight, and stuck with a belt-driven fixed gear drivetrain.
This was never going to be a bike that most would consider affordable, but the $39,000 starting price should ensure that figures never get close to the intended production run of 667 bicycles. For more information on this bike head over to our first look article.
Bianchi Scuderia Ferrari 01
The Bianchi Speciallisima is a bike that we truly adore and one we know to deliver one of the most compelling ride experiences available today. But we aren’t fully sold on this version, which the company has developed in collaboration with Ferrari.
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The Bianchi Scuderia Ferrari 01 is essentially a repainted Speciallisima with a few juicy upgrades and a choice of two finishes: the Ferrari favourite Rosso Corse, and Nero Setoso which reverses most of the red and black elements of the livery.
Special-edition componentry includes a 94g Asute One full-carbon saddle that uses a 3K weave which Ferrari employs in its cars, Bianchi claims. The Fulcrum Speed 40C Carbon 1,420g wheels are also branded Scuderia Ferrari and — just like Ferrari’s F1 cars — are dressed with Pirelli P-Zero tyres.
And the price tag? €15,000.
Diavelo Maserati MC Race e-bike
On the whole, drop bar e-bikes are getting a whole lot better looking. Designs such as the Focus Project Y and Orbea’s new Gain range manage to house a motor and battery so elegantly that even a trained eye would have to look twice to notice them over a regular bike. And then there’s this.
Yes, the colours and the name may match those found on Maserati’s monstrous MC12 supercar but that’s where we believe all parallels end. Actually, it’s hard to think of a bike in recent memory that holds a shape quite as ugly as this one.
The MC Race’s underbelly holds the Fazua Evation mid-motor system, while a smattering of top end bits from the likes of Zipp and SRAM finish off this vulgar beast.
If for whatever reason you aren’t disgusted by its looks then you’re almost certainly going to be disgusted by the price, which by the way we didn’t ask for.
Kawasaki’s e-MTB
OMG, Kawasaki producing a mountain bike?! This must be awesome, or perhaps it could’ve been had Kawasaki not simply licensed its name out to someone else’s somewhat generic e-bike.
In fact, the design comes from Diavelo, the same people that produced the Maserati bike.
Surely it’s about time major motorcycle manufacturers did enter the e-MTB arena, but let’s hope that when they do they do so with designs that bring more to the table than this.
Ducati e-MTBs
Continuing the motorcycle and electric mountain bike theme is this new range of e-MTBs from Ducati. The bikes themselves are actually produced by Bianchi in what has become a continuation of a long-lasting collaboration between these two Italian brands.
In fairness, these look like pretty well executed bikes, but they hardly exude the lust that’s often associated with the company’s motorcycles.
