We swung by the 2010 DC Motorcycle Show this year to see how carbon fiber is being used in the latest motorcycles. We’re happy to say that it’s starting to become pretty intensive, especially in some of the higher end models and customized bikes.
Here we can see the 2010 Graves Yamara R1 Superbike ridden by Josh Hayes:
Here’s a few OEM carbon fiber accessories from Yamaha:
From top to bottom and left to right we have a carbon fiber airbox cover, carbon fiber tank trims, carbon fiber heel guards, carbon fiber tank guards and carbon fiber frame sliders.
Here’s one of the customized shop bikes that uses red and carbon fiber as a theme. Even the windscreen was carbon fiber which was a nice touch.
This carbon fiber exhaust can had some sort of tinted clear or something overlayed which gave it some interesting color changing in different light:
A Harley Davidson drag bike with some carbon fiber parts:
What I’m told is the ultimate motorcycle exhaust, a carbon fiber Arkapovic:
Even the brackets holding the exhaust was carbon fiber, tapered down from top to bottom:
Take a look at this amazing concept bike from Honda
There is carbon fiber all over this thing, including full carbon fiber front and rear wheels from BST.
It’s pretty interesting how multiple sheets of carbon fiber fabric are seamed together, which is very apparent on the rear wheels.
This Bimota Tesi 3D looks stealthy with all of its raw carbon fiber, in fact, it only weighs 370 lbs. Looking to get one in your garage, be prepared to drop close to $40,000 on it.
This 2011 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R is from the PBM Racing Team, as far as we can tell the entire bike was made with carbon fiber. On the inside you can see they used a carbon fiber/kevlar fabric, presumably to prevent issues with shattering (though I’d be curious as to the true answer):
Nice work with the paint and fading out the CF into black:
Ouch 🙁
Check out this sweet carbon fiber motorcycle exhaust table:
One of my favorite bikes at the show was the new Ducati Diavel Carbon, it just looks mean.
For about $20,000 you can have this bike from the factory with all of that carbon fiber.
That’s all the carbon fiber from this years 2011 DC Motorcycle Show, we’ll be back next year!