bottpower

Some weeks ago we fired up the BOTT XR-1 for the first time. The bike is almost ready, we are waiting for the carbon fiber fueltank and seat/tail pieces, which are having some delay.
Once we have these parts we will take some photos of the bike and will show it on our website. We also want to make a test on a track with a good rider, and record it on a video.

Meanwhile we show you some more details of the XR-1. The right footrest is a little bit different from the first design that we showed in the bike renders. This new design is lighter and has a better look.

Here you can see how it looks on the bike. We will black anodize all the parts. Brake pump is the original Buell one.

Regarding the display to show rpm and speed, we are using a Motogadget one, with a classic look that we think will match very well with the bike aesthetics.

We hope to show the complete bike in our next post! :-)

We had sometime without talking about the BOTT XR-1. The project is very advanced, the main parts are already fabricated and currently we are assembling the bike and finishing all the details. This is a task that takes time if you want to do a quality job.

The next photo shows the XR-1 front, we already placed the oil radiator, the lights and the steering lock, which is located in the same position than in the original Buell XB.
You also can see that we assembled an Easton handlebar and CNC machined triple clamps.

The bike already has its fueltank. We developed it in collaboration with Technical Composites, the same company that fabricates our Moto2 bodyworks. This fueltank is glassfiber, but taking profit of Technical Composites last generation autoclave, we are working also in a carbon fiber version.

The lower face of the fueltank is designed to adapt to the shape of our chassis and the Buell engine, in order to maximize the fueltank capacity.

The fueltank is clamped to the chassis through 3 rubber silentblocks, to avoid any possible problem due to vibrations. We use only one bolt to fix it, located in the rear area of the fueltank.

During the next days we will show more pictures of the bike assembly process. As always you will find bigger size photos in our Flickr Gallery.

During last two weeks we raced the 2 last CEV rounds (Valencia and Jerez) with the BOTT M211 and David Tirado as rider. As last year we raced integrated in the MEDES team. We also had Lambea as sponsor, this has been a great help in this financial crisis times.

Despite the final results were not very good, we are happy about these 2 races. It is a pity that both were in wet conditions, because this season we made less kilometers than the rest of the teams, so for us it was very important to ride in dry conditions to keep working on the bike setup.

In Valencia race we did quite well, tarmac was wet and David spent the race overtaking riders till he arrived to 11th position few laps before the end. We thought that we had this position in our pocket, but in the last corner of the last lap David crashed. This is the risk of riding in wet conditions, a small mistake that would be just a fright in dry conditions, in wet means a crash.

Despite the disappointment for the crash, we were happy because we almost finished 11th, a position that till now was quite far from us. You must take into account that there were 40 bikes on the grid, and some Moto2 riders and teams coming from World Championship.

We also had more reasons to be happy. Last year we saw that we should improve the top speed of our bike. This year, Jose Contreras, our specialist in engines and electronics spent a lot of hours working with the engine and the fuel and ignition maps, and the work gave its returns, now we were in the upper half of the top speed tables. Jose explains it: “This year in Cheste track we are 10 km/h faster than last year. This is mainly because the improvements we did on the engine, and the mapping. It is also due to the Arrow exhaust we are using, which improves the engine breathing in medium and top rpm range. This small details are very important in this category in which everything is so close.”

From Valencia we went to Jerez, home track of David Tirado. He is always very fast in Jerez.
On Friday the free sessions were on dry conditions and David lapped in 1:46. It was the first time that our bike was so fast, previously our best times were always 47s. On Friday there are not official times in the CEV, so we didn’t know which was our position on the timetables. We thought that lapping in 46 we were in the top ten.
Unfortunately on saturday it was raining, so the qualifying practices were under the rain and we went quite back in the timetables.. 27th on the grid.

On Sunday the race was also wet. During the first laps David took it easy and once he had some confidence he started lapping faster, improving his saturday times by 3 seconds, and lapping close to the race head times. He gained some positions and finished the race 20th.

After these 2 races, we start working to prepare next season, with the intention of achieving the necessary budget to race the whole season. We are very happy with David Tirado work, and we hope to continue with him as a rider for 2012. We will keep informing about how everything goes on.

We want to thank Pep Pujol for the cool photos he took in both races. You can see the photos at higher resolution in our Flickr gallery.

Little by little we continue going ahead with the BOTT XR-1 project.
As we already mentioned, the oil cooler will be located behind the front number plate, beside the headlights. In this way the bike will have a more clean aspect. In order to locate the radiator in such a small place, we had to build a custom one, that we will sell as an option in our XR-1 building kit.

We are also building the secondary fueltank, which is located under the rear shock-absorber. The outer faces of the tank are CNC milled aluminium parts. This secondary fueltank houses the original Buell fuelpump and it will be other of the kit options. Total fuel capacity of the bike will be around 13 liters (3.5 gallons).

For the main fueltank and seat/tail there will be two options, one in fiberglass, the other one in carbon fiber.

Here you can see some renders updated with the secondary fueltank final design and with the final aspect of the front numberplate.

We will have some news about the XR-1 soon. As always you will find bigger pictures in our Flickr gallery.

We had some time without talking about our Moto2 project. The bike didn’t test or race since April. During this time we continued working on it, mainly on the engine and with the mapping.
As we already commented, we tested several exhausts on the dyno and finally we are using an Arrow one.

We are going to race the 2 last CEV rounds of the season, in Valencia (13th of November) and Jerez (20th of November). For this races we will have a fast rider, David Tirado. He knows the category, the tyres and the tracks. Last year he was on the podium in Jerez, in Formula Extreme category. We think we can achieve a good resoult with him.

Last Friday we had our first test in Valencia. The first laps were to adjust the bike to his taste, later on we started working more seriously on the bike setup.
In the afternoon we had a crash, but fortunately both the rider and the bike were unharmed. We reviewed the bike and then David went back to the track.

We kept working till 17:00 when the track was closed. By then David was smiling because we got what we were looking for, a setup that made him confident enough to ride as fast as he knows.

We will try to have another test before the first race in Valencia. Stay tuned!

In Bottpower we think that the Buell engine and the XR-1 chassis are a very good base with a lot of possibilities for creating funny bikes. Here you have three proposals.

Hugo van Waaijen has created proposals #1 and #2. Hugo is a Dutch designer (currently living in Germany) that has participated in most of the Bottpower projects, since we started doing things at the end of 20th century… :-)
The third design has been made by Miguel Belascuain, an Argentinian designer. We have a very good relationship with him and we hope to keep colaborating in the future.

The first concept is a street supermoto, quite similar to the XR-1, although with different aesthetics. This design could be also a good base to create a cafe racer motorbike, just adding clip-ons instead of the wide handlebar and adding also a front cupolino.

Second design is a road bike with a classic touch, cafe racer style. In Bottpower we love cafe racers and we would like to do something in this field.

And we arrive to Miguel Belascuain concept, which is the most radical and risky one. It is a motorbike that could be classified into the “macho” bike segment. Miguel explains it better:

“When I saw the XR-1 photos I thought that it was a very interesting base to create something. The bike has very few fibers and it could be possible to create a kit to convert a Buell into a “macho” bike with a strong personality.
I think that the Ducati Diavel has created a new category (going away from the Vmax dragster concept and the V-rod “sport custom”) and I think that this design could fit in this category (although with less power, of course).”

Please let us know your opinion about these proposals. You can see higher resolution photos in our Flickr gallery.

As you can see in the pictures, the BOTT XR-1 project continues going ahead. The base of the bike is already built and currently we are working on the fibers (fueltank, seat and front numberplate).

Now we enter a phase of the project in which details are very important. The final version of this BOTT XR-1 first unit will have a lot of special parts: a silencer coming from the race kit (the unit of the photos is the standard one), we will change the handlebar, wheels, brake pump, brake lines… etc.

If everything goes all right, the bike will be ready in autumn. Meanwhile we will keep explaining the project advances. You can see more photos at higher resolution in our Flickr gallery.

While we continue working in the BOTT XR-1 construction (the bike is already on its wheels), here you have some renders showing some aesthetics details we are studing.
Besides the first black version that we already showed, we tried another 2 colour schemes. A red/orange with white numberplates based on the classic XR 750 racers, and another black and white one.

In the poll we made about the headlight design, option #2 won by far. This was the one with 2 small lights placed at one side of the front numberplate.
We also thought about locating the oil radiator next to the headlights, behind the front numberplate, like in the Harley XR 1200 Cup racer. In this way the radiator is hidden and the bike looks cleaner.

We also tried a seat unit with 2 numberplates, one at each side of the bike (the original black version had only one at the right side).

In our Flickr gallery you will find some renders more, all them with bigger size.

Of course, as always, any idea or opinion will be welcome.

AMD (American Motorcycle Dealer) magazine, has published a small article about the XR-1 in their July issue.
AMD is a magazine related with Harley Davidson projects and aftermarket parts. AMD organizes the World & European Championship of Custom Bike Building.

The XR-1 project is going ahead in a steady and constant way. As you can see in the photos, the construction of the first chassis is very advanced. We still must weld the shock mounting point and some other details.

In the following days we will start with the bike assembly. We look forward to see it standing.. and to test ride it!

As always you will find larger photos on our Flickr gallery.