Rimini-born
Vyrus virtuoso
Ascanio Rodorigo has
lived and
worked all his
life in
themotorcycling hotbed of
the Riviera
Adriatica, beginning as
a 20-year old
wrench for
thelocal Bimota factory
race team in
1973 under the
aegis of his
idol, Massimo
Tamburini.After Tamburini's
departure, Bimota suffered
one of its
periodic financial
crises andstopped
racing, although
Tamburini's replacement,
Federico Martini,
soon righted
matterscommercially by
creating the firm's
best-selling debut
Ducati-powered bike,
the DB1. Aftera
spell on the
production line
building customer bikes,
Rodorigo was,
ironically, long goneby
the time
Martini built the
first-ever Honda
V4-powered Tesi
prototype in 1985,
ahub-center design
which was the
Mech.E thesis
(hence the name)
of his young
assistant freshout
of university,
Pierluigi Marconi.
"I
learned a lot
building customer
bikes for
Bimota, but it
was so
repetitive I had
toleave before
I got bored,"
admits Rodorigo,
who on January
1, 1985 opened
his own
companyunder the ARP
name on the
other side of
Rimini, a small
but soon
well-regarded workshopproducing
special parts
for race or
road, as well
as a variety
of special
sportbike frames."My passion
has always been
to build
prototypes and one-off
concepts," says
themachine-room Picasso, who
also became
recognized as the
man to visit
if you had
an unusualbike,
and especially a
racer, that
needed work done.
"Our team at
ARP was very
adaptableand could
work very fast
in making
one-off parts or
complete bikes.
We were like
a mousecompared
to the elephant
that bigger
companies' development
departments were, bycomparison.
I worked on
quite a few
Tesis, and we
were always
having problems with
themwhich seemed
impossible to
resolve. But I
had an
Australian friend, Matthew
Casey, whoworked
for Bimota in
the 1990s, and
he has four
of them! He
was always
telling me to
make aTesi the
way I wanted
to-`It's your
kind of motorcycle-just
go and do
it!' he kept
tellingme. So,
eventually, in September
2002, I decided
to do
so."

ARP
already had
some pretty effective
after-hours helpers,
not least
Dervis Macrelli, theframe-making
wizard who's
worked with Tamburini
putting his
ideas into metal
ever since
theearly Bimota days,
and who got
into the habit
of stopping by
ARP after
clocking off at
CRC(Cagiva Research
Center) to help
create what
became known as
the Vyrus.
Where'd thatsomewhat, er,
negative-sounding name
come from,
then? "When considering
how the
firstprototype should be,
we decided to
build a bike
to display at
the Padova Show
the followingJanuary,
which is the
Mecca for
anyone doing something
special on two
wheels in
Italy,"explains Rodorigo. "It
was a real
challenge that
meant we worked
day and night
for threemonths.
One night at
3 a.m., I
was washing my
hands free of
powder after
working on thebody
styling-we didn't
have 3D
computer modeling, we
did everything
by hand according
to arough
drawing, just by
eye. My friend
Mauro working
with me was
a builder
during the day,and
he kept trying
to persuade me
to go to
bed-so he could
too, I guess!
But I wanted
toget the body
finished-then when
we'd done so
I suddenly
realized we hadn't
got a name
forthe bike. We
couldn't call
it Tesi, because
that was
Bimota's name-but then
Mauro told
me,we must call
it Vyrus, but
with a `y'
not an `i',
because this is
not like the
one before,a
virus that is
in every
computer and maybe
in us, too,
to be so
crazy working
here at 3a.m.
to build a
motorcycle. So,
that's when ARP
became Vyrus."
That
first Vyrus 984
duly made its
debut at the
Padova Show in
January 2003,
powered by atuned
Ducati 900SS
desmodue motor of
the kind ARP
had been racing
with success
inSuperTwins events-hence the
model designation,
which was the
cubic capacity
of the engine."We
knew this
engine very well
from racing it,
so it had
no secrets from
us," statesRodorigo.
"If we were
to concentrate
on trying to
make this
high-tech chassis design
workproperly, we
had to not
worry at all
about the
engine, so that's
why we chose
the desmodue.It
was a known
quantity." But
the proprietor of
the new Vyrus
company admits
to beingcompletely unprepared
for the
rapturous reception his
new bike
received. "We had
literallyhundreds of
inquiries to
make production versions
of our
prototype, which we
were quiteunprepared
to do," he
says. "But I
realized we had
now to turn
the prototype
into acustomer version
we could
manufacture in series
in small
batches, always by
hand, but
insome kind of
volume. We had
to get the
bike homologated
first, though,
which in fact
was afascinating
experience I
enjoyed very much,
producing the
lightest twin-cylinder
sportbikein the marketplace,
though always
completely street-legal-but
finally we
succeeded."

After
an intensive
development process on
the racetrack,
during which the
Vyrus 984
ProTwins racer became
a regular
visitor to the
rostrum in
European twin-cylinder racing
in thehands of
Gianluca Villa,
nephew of the
late four-time
world champion Walter,
the firstfully
homologated Vyrus streetbike
met its happy
customer in
January 2003. Since
then, atotal of
70 such bikes
have been
constructed, 25 of
them marketed
in a neat
squaring of
thecircle under the
Tesi 2D tag
by the
born-again Bimota company
through their
dealers aroundthe
world-including two bikes
sold in Russia,
and 10 to
Japan. With
production up andrunning
of this
desmodue version, delivering
77 bhp in
a bike weighing
339 pounds
instreet-legal form, Rodorigo
turned his
attention to a
Superbike version
powered by
Ducati's104mm-bore 999cc
Testastretta motor, to
create a modern
version of the
original Tesi
whichinspired the whole
design. After a
strung-out development
path beginning
back in 2004
("Weare only
five people, and
demand for the
984 is so
constant, we
couldn't spare the
time topay
attention to the
new bike," he
shrugs), the
first 985 appeared
at the start
of thisyear,
and was promptly
sold-to Russia!
Since then, two
more 4V bikes
have been
built, ofwhich the
test machine
was the first
Vyrus to cross
the Atlantic to
head up a
U.S. salesdrive.
The
dramatic modernist
styling of the
Vyrus 985 is
the work of
Rodorigo himself,
with closehelp
from ex-Ducati designer
Sam Matthews,
formerly Pierre Terblanche's
right-hand man,
butnow working for
Citroen in
Paris. "We did
this at long
distance, with
Sam making CADdrawings
and me
interpreting them into
a full-size
clay model, then
e-mailing him
photos ofthe result,"
says Rodorigo.
A copy of
the finished
article can be
yours in the
color ofyour
choice 60 days
after placing
an order for
54,750 Euro
(about $67,750) inclusive
of taxin Italy,
with full EU
homologation. A
fully-faired option will
be available
later thisyear, at
additional cost.-MC