If Yamaha let you choose any one of their bikes to customize, which would you pick" For David Sánchez and the wildly talented crew at Bottpower, the choice was clear. They took the highly capable XSR900, and turned it into one of the most ferocious Yard Built bikes we’ve ever featured.
Yard Built is Yamaha’s long-running custom program, where builders are encouraged to customize bikes without cutting their frames. So as bananas as this prototype is, it’s been designed as a plug-and-play kit that anyone can buy from Bottpower. What’s more, the kit will fit the XSR900’s siblings too; the MT-09 and Tracer 9.

Dubbed the ‘Carbona XR9,’ the design takes inspiration from Bottpower’s Buell-powered BOTT XR1R racer that won its class at the 2017 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. And as the name implies, it features a lot of carbon fiber. Bottpower picked the XSR900 for its triple-cylinder ‘Crossplane’ motor, electronics package and nimble chassis. ?We thought it was a very good base for a light and fast bike,? says David. ?We kept with the same concept that we used on our Pikes Peak race bike: a powerful and light, big supermoto-style motorbike.?

The design sure is aggressive, with most of the visual mass pushed forwards.
?The XR9 Carbona features a lot of optical mass around the engine,? explains Bottpower senior designer, Hugo van Waaijen, ?meaning a stubby front and short rear. When looking from the three q...