Bottpower to Race Pikes Peak with Travis

Sideburn is proud to have brokered a deal to put our staff poet, track tester and roving ambassador, Travis Newbold on  a very special version of Bottpower's XR1 to compete at Pikes Peak in 2017 (subject to entry being accepted, see below).

The Spanish company's XR1R will use an engine from the track-only Buell XBRR. Only 56 of this fully-faired, Daytona-focussed racers were built, during the time of Harley's ownership of Buell, and two have been loaned to the team by their customers. The engine will be in Bott's own titanium spine chassis. The styling of the bike will be very similar to the XR1R (above). I hope there is room for 747 on the side number plate.

The main sponsor for the Bottpower Pikes Peak project are our friends at Kriega, the British-based innovative moto-luggage firm who have advertised in Sideburn since issue 1, and who we featured in Sideburn 21.

Entries for the motorcycle and ATV classes at Pikes Peak have been slashed in recent years (perhaps as a result of two deaths in two years), so the team's official entry is being considered. Fingers crossed.

Travis has won his class in previous years and came second in 2015 on the Buell-powered Ronin. he was only beaten by an HRC-backed Honda America Fireblade.

You can read more about Pikes Peak in a story written by Guy Martin in Sideburn 18. We only have two of these issues left.

Keep up with the Bottpower Pike Peak project at the Bottpower blog. G

BOTT XR1R

We have been big fans of Spanish company Bottpower since we first saw their computer modelled concept in 2011 and we were the first magazine in the world to featured their first production bike, back in Sideburn 13, 2013. Now they've developed their niche furhter with this titanium framed, XR1R. Bottpower are MotoGP level engineers, working in Moto2, World Endurance and top Superbike series'. This Found David Sanchez says about their new flagship.

The BOTT XR1R is a special version of our BOTT XR1. The XR1 is a street bike, while the XR1R is a bike that we are developing to use only on the track.

We see it as a big supermoto bike, which feels at home on twisty tracks. This XR1R unit is a Bottpower laboratory bike, that we are using to test and develop new solutions for our bikes and customers.

We have a very good customer who ordered us a BOTT XC1 cafe racer with titanium frame and racing electronics and one of the targets of the XR1R is to develop those components, so the BOTT XR1R has a titanium frame and also an EFI Euro4 ECU which allows to use adjustable traction control, launch control and 3 different engine maps.

I have been working for 10 years as data engineer in different championships and categories, so for us to add a data acquisition system was a mandatory step to make a good development work. With this bike we will measure things that we do not measure normally, like the stress in different points of the frame using extensometry gauges.

We have a testing program for this year with several tests on different tracks. We will also organize a test in which some journalists and some of our best customers will test the bike.

And as culmination of this project, we are working to race with the BOTT XR1R in next year Pikes Peak race. In principle we won’t be able to use the titanium frame because it is not allowed by the technical rules, so we will need to look for another solution (probably an evolution of our XR1 steel frame). Our target with this bike in race configuration is to achieve a power to weight ratio better than 1:1. This is, more than 150 HP and less than 150 kgs.

Bottpower is a very small company with very limited resources, so in this case the first challenge for Pikes Peak will be to find the necessary sponsors and supporters to complete the budget. We plan to explain the whole process in a very detailed way on our blog, so we invite everybody to follow us in this great adventure!

BOTT XR1R Technical specifications

Engine
Air/oil cooled 1203cc Buell Thunderstorm V-Twin, 1203 cm3.
Fuel system: 49 mm downdraft DDFI II fuel injection
Gearbox: 5-speed
Clutch: Wet, multi-plate, compensated
Final Drive: Belt
Electronics: EFI Euro4
ECU

Chassis
Titanium central Spine Bottpower frame, with vibration isolation system
Front Suspension: Showa inverted fork from a Buell 1125
Rear Suspension: Öhlins shock absorber
Front Brake: 8 pistons ZTL2 type brake, 375 mm stainless steel floating rotor
Rear Brake: 240 mm stainless steel rotor, single piston floating caliper
Tyres: Slicks, Front 120/70xZR17 and Rear 190/55xZR17
The bike has a top fuel tank and 2 secondary fuel tanks.
Original Buell fuel pump located in the left secondary fuel tank.

Dimensions 
Wheelbase: 52in / 1321 mm
Seat Height: 30.1 in / 765 mm
Ground Clearance: 4.3 in / 109 mm
Weight: Not declared yet.
Fuel Capacity: 13 liters.

www.bottpower.com
http://twitter.com/bottpower
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bottpower-Project/117279678290426

Ronin #2:

More Ronin. Here is part of a press release from the Denver company.

Ronin Motor Works is pleased to announce the completion of four special Ronin Art Motorcycles within their series of 47 production bikes. The designs of these motorcycles were developed in collaboration with local Denver, Colorado artists. Each bike is painstakingly hand painted or etched in the style of the artist. Ronin Motor Works plans to auction these bikes publicly this summer, save for one that has already been sold, but inquiries by collectors can be made prior to by emailing info@roninmotorworks.com. 
Ronin Motor Works is nearing the completion of their build of 47 custom motorcycles. To date, over half of the motorcycles built have been sold. More details on the color schemes and specifications of these motorcycles can be found via their website at www.the47.com

Ronin #2 is the final motorcycle in the series and the paint scheme was designed by local Denver illustrator Samuel Lee Turner. Mr. Turner studied traditional Japanese illustration and tattoo art to accomplish his design. The artwork depicts the Samurai Teraoka Nobuyuki, who was the only warrior in the 47 Ronin clan who remained alive after they enacted revenge on the Lord who disgraced their master. The leader of the 47 Ronin, Oishi Yoshio, requested that Teraoka watch over the spirits of his fallen comrades, depicted as Tengu mountain creatures on the right side of the motorcycle. Mr. Turner portrays Teraoka on the opposite side wielding a heavy hammer, his weapon of choice during the counter insurgency of the Ronin Samurai. The motorcycle is hand painted and exquisitely detailed in the style of traditional Japanese tattooed body suits.

Travis and the Ronin at Pikes Peak

This is a video of our poet, regular contributor and friend Travis racing the firebreathing Ronin at Pikes Peak last year. The video is long because it shows three full 10 or so minute runs from different angles, but I'll be honest and say I didn't watch them all right through.

The beginning of the film is loaded with emotion and significance as Travis hugs his wife before the start, she kisses him on the chinbar of his helmet and walks to the side wiping a tear from behind her sunglasses. Earlier in the week their good friend Carl Sorensen crashed in practice and died. Travis had been weighing up the opportunity versus risk since then and came to a decision. Watch how he leaves the startline to see how committed he was to his decision. Travis would come second overall behind Honda America's official CBR1000 entry.

You can either watch the entire film, flick through the different angles or choose one angle and watch the whole race, but at the very least have a flick through to see the landscape change from lush forest to barren rockfield to snowline. At 35:16 Travis passes as a deer at over 100mph.

At the beginning the mechanic uses the line 'Colorado bike, Colorado rider, Colorado race'. It made me smile because I used that line when I visited Ronin in Denver to be the first journalist in the world to ride the road bike and put the idea of this Pikes Peak project in Ronin's mind. Who doesn't love it when a plan comes together?

Read my Ronin road test in Sideburn 19. G

UPDATE: This post was supposed to go up yesterday but was SNAFU'd. Sorry!

Ronin

This is an interesting bike with a very interesting story behind it, being made in Denver, Colorado. Here's the official line from Ronin temselves...

First 12 Ronin Motorcycles released for sale

Denver, CO – After several years in development, Ronin Motor Works announced today that it is releasing the first 12 bikes of their limited run of 47 motorcycles via their website http://www.the47.com

These limited production motorcycles are designed at the Ronin Motor Works factory in Denver, Colorado, using the latest in engineering software and design techniques. The Ronin motorcycles are produced to strict tolerances, and yet each motorcycle is crafted with honest, time-tested manufacturing principles. Each production Ronin features 11 cast aluminum parts, all poured and heat-treated within a short drive of the Ronin Motor Works factory. Castings are hand-sanded over countless hours before being painted and assembled onto bikes. Other components including the seat, carbon fiber air box cover and fenders, sheet metal parts, and wiring harness are all designed in-house and then sourced locally. The Ronin's design is as unique as its manufacturing process. The brake and clutch master cylinders and steering nacelle are all one integrated assembly ending with small bar end mirrors and LED turn signals. To achieve a light, clean aesthetic, cables, wiring, and fluid lines are routed inside the castings and under the air box cover and seat. Traditional motorcycle components are combined into unitized parts to save space and weight, such as the battery box that incorporates the rider’s foot pegs and the belt drive tensioner. Other advance design features of the Ronin Motorcycle include, RFID ignition key and solid-state rely module, custom-tuned ECU, high-efficiency stator and a newly designed high-flow exhaust system.

The first 12 bikes released will be in the classic Silver and Black color of the original Magpul concept bike. At $38,000 (USD) each, these bikes will be the most affordable of all the Ronin motorcycles released (and priced below the cost to produce them). The initial release of 12 will be followed by 10 all-black versions at an increased price. After that, there will be a release of 8, then 6, then 4, and then 2; each group will have different color schemes and features. The remaining 5 bikes will be one-off designs. Every bike is named after one of the 47 Ronin warriors from Japanese folklore, and each warrior's name is engraved on the bike and on the owner's toolkit.

Ronin Motorcycle History 
In 2008, when the Buell 1125 was first released, there were press shots of the bike showing the engine, frame and swing arm with all of the body panels removed and the simplicity of the design was evident. Arguably, the production 1125’s most interesting engineering aspects were hidden under its skin. At that time Magpul Industries Corp. acquired two Buell 1125Rs to use in a design exercise to explore what sort of bike could be built around the revolutionary engine and frame. Eight months later, the resulting concept bike was revealed as the Magpul Ronin at the 2010 SHOT show in Las Vegas.

Later that year, Harley-Davidson announced the elimination of the Buell brand and with that, Harley-Davidson dealerships started liquidating their Buell assets. Based on the possibility of creating additional Ronin motorcycles, a number of stock 1125s were purchased and placed into storage. Because the bike was designed as a concept, it was not conventional in appearance or function. People either loved it or hated it, but enough interest was generated to investigate a limited production run of the Ronin design.

Since the concept bike was hand built, building more than a handful of bikes would require infrastructure to be put in place. As the concept was named Ronin it was decided that the number of bikes should be 47 as homage to the old story of The 47 Ronin from Japanese folklore. Taken from the Japanese word for a Samurai who lost their master, the name "Ronin" was chosen to signify Buell motorcycles that will continue on after the demise of the company. The Ronin concept featured a custom monoshock linkage suspension system, front-mounted radiator, unitized handlebar assembly, new ram air intake, cast aluminum tail section, and high-flow exhaust system. The features enhanced the bike’s ride while also decreasing the total weight by approximately 50lbs from stock.

From Concept to Production - Ronin Motor Works 
In 2012, two of the Magpul founders came up with a plan to keep the project alive by individually funding a “pop up” manufacturing company dedicated to producing a production version of the Ronin motorcycle concept. They formed Ronin Motor Works in order to create an entity solely focused on the Ronin project, since the demands and specifics were somewhat different from Magpul’s main focus on a rapidly growing presence in its primary product markets. Ronin Motor Works secured a location in Denver and hired a small team of motorcycle design specialists. This team starting working on a 20 month long redesign of the Ronin, using the concept bike as a guide. Extensive engineering, design for manufacturability, ergonomics, and testing went into the final product.

In 2013 the production design was finalized and Magpul authorized Ronin Motor Works to use the “Magpul”trademark and logo mark on the production bikes under the name “Magpul Ronin Project.” In 2014 production began on the first group of Ronin motorcycles. These will be released in reverse serial number order (47 -1) in various, predetermined color schemes that will be more limited as each release is announced.

Buell EBR Demo Day

This Saturday 13th, Krazy Horse are have a demo day 10am-4pm, for the large kahuna'd EBR Buell.

Cafe Racer Festival, Montlhery

August? It's August already? What! I don't seem to have had two minutes to relax this year. June was the craziest. Two trips to the Isle of Man (one on a rubber dinghy); Dirt Quake II, Wheels and Waves and this event, the brilliant Cafe Racer Festival and the historic Monlhery circuit on the outskirts of Paris.
Both Ben and I work for Cafe Racer magazine (the French one) and have big admiration for its boss, Bertrand, so when we were invited, we made our second long trip to France in a week, having just returned from Biarritz.
I'm so glad we did. It was great.

The event was all centred around the amazing speed bowl track, that dates back to the 1920s. For something like 100 euro, you could have sessions riding it as fast and high as you dare. The photo above shows the scale. Articulated lorries fit through that tunnel. The speck is a bike coming down from the steepest, tallest section of banking.

There was a 'street' of dealers, bike builders, kit sellers and painters too. The Sideburn stand was manned by me (Gary) and Dave Taylor, who spent Saturday and Sunday spinning fantastic tunes too. The browsing spectators loved them, the insurance company opposite us, didn't.

We were next to Mr Martini (from Italy) and a classic bike racing club from England. Sideburn stockists, Motokouture (above) came from Belgium. Star Twin came from the Netherlands...

Radical Ducati drove up from Madrid with a ton of great bikes, including this 350...

SR500 specialists Kedo came from Germany...

One of Krugger's bikes came from Belgium. Bertrand the event organiser did a mid-week flit from Paris to the neighbouring country to pick up this reverse-head Honda. Fred Krugger was supposed to be there but his leg had been broken by a flying race bike that went out of control at the Isle of Man TT and cartwheeled down Bray Hill. The world famous custom builder was stood in the garden it landed in. He was lucky he wasn't killed.

This dude is a famous French actor, called Pio Marmaï. He's a big deal, but I didn't realise till I looked him up when I got him. He was here drinking beer and racing his scruffy XS650 chop. That's when he wasn't taking his cat, Mr Pickles, for a walk.

Bertrand, the boss of Cafe Racer - editor, publisher, writer, everything. He also organised this great event, with help from a small team. Here he is getting in some crucial Gallic shrug practice while talking to the one and only Sonic Seb.

If I saw these two fellas walking round in England I'd be wondering where they parked their slammed VW Golf, but they owned and built these two stunners. 

GSX-R1100 with drum brakes. Er, ooookayyy...

Mr Martini, Bertrand B, me. Hats for sale at the Sideburn shop.

Hauler.

Neat KTM LC4 road racer.

Cool French cats in their Lewis Leathers.

Awesome road and race bikes were everywhere you looked. Like this Dick Mann replica.

And this XR750 road racer.

Norton George was over from the UK too, with his amazing bobber (running modern discs)

Variety. Neat ancient Peugeot...

And this Zen Buell, meant it was my kind of event.

Met loads of cool people from great companies, like David and his wife from Pure Motorcycles.

Pull Your Finger Out

Me and Renia from the Chatokhine Crew.

Seb and Laurens.

Neat Sportster tracker.

Triton, Vans and Church of Choppers sticker.

A few XR1200s turned up.

Bertrand lent me his Trackmaster Triumph (that featured in the recently sold out SB12) to race in the sprint. I did alright till I starting missing gears... (Photo by Renia1)
What an amazing event. If they do it next year, be there. We will be. G