We recently spoke to the founder of Vyrus Motorcycles, Asciano Rodorigo, at his workshop in Rimini, Italy. When he described the Alyen 988’s airbox design, he provided insight into his fanatical attention to detail and obsessive pursuit of lightness. “A CNC aluminum base, which is also a load-bearing structural component of the frame, is mated to a cast magnesium body, and a carbon fiber cover, with a plastic housing for the sensors.” If you’ve ever looked at your bike’s airbox, you’ll know they aren’t usually a talking point and generally made from molded plastic.

Hand-built from exotic materials, combining bold (to use a blatant understatement), angular styling and premium components, and adding to the Alyen’s exceptional credentials, the most striking feature of every Vyrus, a forkless Hub-Center Steering (HCS) system. It’s tempting to say that the Vyrus Alyen is the Pagani Imola of motorcycles; they both share Grand Prix-level engineering and performance in a street-legal package and have price tags to match, but the comparison doesn’t do the motorcycle full justice. The Imola still looks like a car from the 2020s, whereas the latest Vyrus looks like a prop from a big-budget sci-fi movie.

From Bimota To Vyrus

Asciano Roderigo hails from Rimini, in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region and the epicenter of the Italian motorcycle industry. His father was a friend of Masimo Tamburini, co-founder of Bimota, and destined to become a legend among motorcycle designers. The young Rodorigo joined Bimota in 1982, working under the guidance of Dervis Macrelli, already a renowned frame builder. Tamburini, an obsessive perfectionist, made a big impression on the rookie engineer.

“Tamburini was a real master, a maestro.” Rodorigo told us, “Before we changed the oil in the engine, he made us check the floor of the workshop with a spirit level.”

When Bimota ran into its first financial fracas, Tamburini walked out, accepting an offer to run the Centro Di Ricerca Cagiva, the source of so many glorious machines, including ground breaking bikes like the Ducati 916 and the Paso, and the beautiful MV Agusta Brutale, and very special, F4. Rodorigo left to open a modest workshop fabricating custom parts and modifying and preparing race bikes. Fifteen years later, he would partner with a resurging Bimota to help develop the new Tesi and its innovative Hub-Center Steering system. It would also be the genesis of a new Italian marque—Vyrus.

Reinventing The Fork

Hub-Center Steering has been around almost as long as the fork, and its first recorded use on a motorcycle dates to 1910. HCS is a far more complex system than the fork and remained an outlier, but in 1981, Pierluigi Marconi and Roberto Ugolini breathed new life into the concept when they designed an innovative prototype as part of their final year thesis at Bologna University. Tamburini took an interest and the Bimota Tesi 1 would be the first contemporary motorcycle equipped with HCS since the Yamaha GTS 1000.

RELATED: These Are 9 Of The Best Italian Motorcycles Of All TimeYou may ask, why bother? Reinventing the fork appears to be no less redundant than reinventing the wheel. However, the fork suffers from two fundamental drawbacks. Firstly, braking forces transmitted through the fork compress the springs, leaving less travel to handle the road surface. The resulting dive also narrows the steering geometry, reducing stability, and inversely, accelerating extends the fork reducing steering response. Secondly, even the best fork assemblies are subject to a degree of flexation due to the leverage applied through the legs around the headstock. When the fork sleeves flex it results in stiction (additional friction), preventing the fork legs from moving freely.

Marconi’s HCS system utilizes a ball joint at the wheel’s hub. Steering inputs act on the front wheel through a series of mechanical linkages that culminate in a quadrangle of rods extending from the frame like a swingarm. This arrangement has two distinct advantages; braking forces are directed horizontally through the steering rods, vastly reducing their effect on suspension, and steering geometry remains constant. Nonetheless, Marconi and the Bimota team (which now included Rodorigo’s company as consultants) wrestled with the concept for ten years, never fully overcoming the HCS’s Achilles heel. Namely, complex linkages lead to slack and inconsistent steering response.

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Bimota’s history oscillates between shining success and abject failure and, during the firm’s second insolvency, Rodorigo decided to pick up the Tesi project where Bimota had left off. The result was the first Vyrus, the 984, and arguably the first fully refined rendering of Marconi’s innovative HCS design.

'Pura Follia Tecnologica': Pure Technological Madness

The intervening decade has culminated in Vyrus’ newest addition to their repertoire, the Alyen. Eminent contemporary designer Yutaka Igarashi re-partnered with Vyrus on their latest project, and was responsible for interpreting Rodorigo’s vision, based on an idea sketched out by Adrian Morton, the former MV Agusta designer. Igarashi created a strikingly unique outline incorporating a floating handlebar and nose section “shaped like the neck of a living thing.” The Alyen also uses the firm’s most advanced HCS design to date, their Hydraulic Wired Steering System (HWSS).

At the heart of each Alyen is a Ducati Superquadro 1299 engine, the same motor driving the latest Panigale. The water-cooled, 1285cc, 90-degree V-twin has a bucket-sized 116 mm bore, producing 205 hp and over 100 lb-ft of torque.

Encased in an Omega magnesium alloy frame and adorned with a unidirectional (UD) carbon fiber body. UD is a composite with all the carbon fibers aligning in the same direction. It exhibits higher tensile properties, and the untreated surface has a unique texture resembling brushed aluminum.

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Every aspect of the manufacturing process aims to minimize weight. Rodorigo describes the central parts making up the Alyen as an interdependent system, removing any one of them compromises the whole, even the airbox is a load-bearing member. In addition to the extensive use of UD carbon fiber in the bodywork, the 988 has forged magnesium wheels and swingarms, Ergal 7075 connecting rods and rockers, and carbon-ceramic disc brakes.

The Alyen component list is equally exotic. The suspension uses a proprietary pushrod system—at both ends—combined with Ohlins TTX 40 monoshocks. Biting on the carbon-ceramic discs are Brembo GP4 RR P4 Monobloc calipers, and rounding off the bling, the magnesium wheels come shod in Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SP V3 tires.

The unconventional styling of this rolling piece of art defies description. From the side, the floating steering head evokes the alien moniker. Head-on, there is something about the flared UD carbon panels that resemble the shoulder armor of a Samurai warrior. Everything, the seat, exhaust cans, and tail cowling are uniquely stylized. We’re only grateful Vyrus has sent us plenty of images. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder, and you can judge for yourselves.

A Blueprint For The Future

Vyrus only plans on making 20 Alyen 988s, and their unpublished price is bound to be beyond the means of all but a few. As such, it’s tempting to write Vyrus’ latest off-the-charts creation as a showpiece, irrelevant to all but a handful of wealthy enthusiasts. But I would argue that today’s hyperbikes lay the foundations for tomorrow’s mass-produced machines.

Many of the technical problems Rodorigo and his team are currently solving will form the basis of new designs incorporated in the motorcycles destined for our future garages. Who knows? A few short years from now, you might be able to buy a UD carbon clad Ducati with Hub-Center Steering.