Best Bikes of the EICMA Motorcycle Show in Milan

INSANE POWER, INSANE TORQUE, INSANE HYPERBOLE TURN ITALIAN SHOW INTO INSANE CENTENNIAL BLOWOUT

There was a time, in our own lifetimes, when there wasn’t this much power in supercars. That it exists – and performs – in production motorcycles means it’s time to reset your brain’s whole outlook of what’s possible on two wheels.

The EICMA (Esposizione Mondiale del Motociclismo) motorcycle show started 100 years ago in Milan and has, after a couple of world wars and a Great Depression or two, managed to come together 72 times. It remains the granddaddy of all bike shows. It runs through Sunday so you could still fuel the private jet and get over to Milan to see all this stuff (some of you are actually going to do that, which makes us insanely jealous).

The EICMA is a big deal. It is for motorcycles what the Frankfurt or Tokyo motor shows are for cars. There are spacey futuristic alien concept bikes for manufacturers to be coy about, there are superbikes that blur the line between track and street and there are more pedestrian cycles the average Joe could buy and ride, but no one wants to hear about that last group. They want to see the screamers and the dreamers. So let’s go.

The two standout superbikes in Milan this year are the Kawasaki Ninja H2 and the Yamaha YZF-R1.

The big news with the Kawasaki Ninja H2 is the bike’s supercharger. It sits aft of the 998cc four-cylinder to provide a reported 200 hp and what Kawasaki promises will be an experience “beyond belief.” And if that isn’t far enough, beyond that is the H2’s bigger brother the H2R, which debuted a month earlier. The space-age centrifugal supercharger is said to spin at a delirious 140,000 rpm. Yes, that’s a six-figure spin rate, 140,000. Output is said to peak at 300 almost-ridiculous horsepower and is, understandably, for the track only. Some estimates say top speed of the H2R could hit 250 mph.

World Superbike champions Aprilia, meanwhile, showed an RSV4 with an added 16 hp for a total output of 201.

We told you about the Yamaha YFZ-R1 when it debuted simultaneously in Milan and Hollywood last Monday. Yamaha offers two depths of depravity in this bike: the R1 and the R1M. The R1 weighs just 439 pounds and gets its reported 200 hp from an inline four-cylinder engine. The mill’s titanium connecting rods mean quicker, higher revs to make that much output useable.

Electronic controls play an increasingly larger part in extracting power from this beast and putting it on the ground, with traction control, slide control, wheelie control, launch control, quickshifter, ABS and what Yamaha calls the first six-axis “Inertial Measuring Unit” ever put on a street bike. Yamaha says the R1M, a step up from the R1, is “the closest you can get to a production YZR-M1 MotoGP bike. In addition to the electronic controls on the R1, the R1M gets Ohlins Electronic Racing Suspension, a Communication Control Unit that lets riders download their runs for later analysis, and some nice carbon fiber bodywork.

Also new among superbikes is the Ducati Panigale 1299. The 1285cc Superquadro engine makes 205 hp at 10,500 rpm and gains a number of electronic systems to make the most of that power: Cornering ABS, Ducati Wheelie Control, Ducati Traction Control, Engine Brake Control and Ohlins Smart EC on the S version of the bike. Ducati Quick Shift can now be used to downshift the 1299, too.

Competitor Honda revealed its own World Superbike prototype, the RC213V-S, but it had “only” 174 hp.

The BMW S 1000 RR superbike made a showing in Milan with a new 199-hp engine that has nine fewer pounds of motorcycle to push around. Sure, all that was introduced at the Intermot show a month earlier, but we like the S 1000 RR so here it is again. BMW did show all-new bikes in Milan, including new boxer models BMW R 1200 R and R 1200 RS and the S 1000 XR Sports Tourer.

Competitor KTM also unveiled a new Sports Tourer – the 1050 Adventure.

Those are just a few of the bikes in the Fieramilana this weekend. If you go, and you have all the way through Sunday to get there, have fun. Ciao!