The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is madness of the highest order. Racers blast through the 12-mile course at breakneck speed?climbing 4,720 feet and navigating 152 turns, right on the edge of disaster.
Tackling it on two wheels takes tons of skill, massive cojones and a few loose screws. And a motorcycle that can go really, really fast. Today we’re profiling one such bike: the Bottpower BOTT XR1R, which Travis Newbold recently piloted to a win in the Exhibition Powersport class.

You know Bottpower?they’re the Spanish outfit producing kits that radically transform the Buell XB-series. But what you might not know, is that Bottpower boss David Sánchez is an experienced race engineer. So he knows how to make bikes attractive and quick.
Building a race bike at this level is no mean feat, and the BOTT XR1R?built purely for The Race to the Clouds?has been a long time in the making. We saw the first prototype a year ago, but a lot has changed since then.
?The idea was to build a bike with better performance, which meant looking for more power, less weight and better components,? says Sánchez. ?At the same time I wanted to keep using the air cooled V-twin engine, which I love because of the aesthetics, the sound and the character.?

Bottpower’s road-going XR1?and the early XR1R prototype?used Buell’s 1203cc Thunderstorm motor. But Sánchez wanted more, so he’s shoehorned in the motor from the extremely limited edition Buell XBRR race bik...