The {custom} scene is stuffed with bike designers, artists, mechanics, fabricators, welders, and metal-shaping wizards. However David Sánchez wears one other badge that only a few confidently can; engineer.
David runs the bike workshop Bottpower in Valencia, Spain, greatest identified for its gnarly Buell customs and body kits. He’s additionally an skilled bike racing engineer with quite a few European Superbike and Supersport seasons below his belt. So that have trickles right down to the purposeful machines that he and his gifted staff create.
Issues get even wilder when David isn’t working to a set temporary or a deadline, as evidenced by this savage {custom} superbike. Constructed from the bones of a Honda CBR954RR Fireblade, this Bottpower particular contains a bespoke chassis, a novel entrance suspension system, and miles of carbon fiber. It’s additionally taken David 20 years (plus change) to carry it to life.
The mission kicked off in 2002 with a model new Honda CBR954RR Fireblade and a really particular idea. Along with Bottpower co-founder and skilled automotive designer, Hugo van Waaijen, David envisioned a motorbike with a trellis body to droop the motor from, a novel entrance suspension system, and an uncovered airbox and gasoline tank.
Utilizing simply the Fireblade’s engine, wheels, and swingarm, the duo designed the inspiration for the bike you see right here. However as quickly because the rolling chassis was full, the mission stalled for causes unknown.
“The bike sat disassembled for a few years, gathering mud,” David tells us. “The truth is, just a few years in the past I thought-about promoting off any helpful components and forgetting about it. The factor is, after we began this mission, we had little or no expertise with bikes—and if we had been to construct this sort of bike now, we’d do every part very in another way.”
“Happily, we in the end determined to complete this model earlier than creating a brand new one. Now that I see it accomplished, I’m glad we made that call.”
We’re glad too. It might need taken David and Hugo 21 years to get this one over the end line, but it surely definitely doesn’t look dated. It’s a pointy machine that intentionally leaves little or no to the creativeness by placing its myriad technical options on full show.
The Hossack-like entrance suspension instance alone is worthy of additional examine. “It’s much like a Hossack design,” David factors out, “but it surely has some variations, just like the suspended steering head—an thought from Hoyt McKagen. “This design permits us to make use of bearings within the steering head as an alternative of the standard ball joints used within the Hossack system.”
“The benefit is that bearings have a a lot decrease friction coefficient and in addition enable for a higher steering angle. The entrance finish is designed to dive significantly lower than a telescopic fork (and the dive stage is adjustable). This leaves us with additional journey for the suspension to work throughout braking, and it additionally improves braking capacity as a result of the rear wheel maintains higher contact with the asphalt.”
Transferring to the trellis body that varieties the nexus of the bike, David explains that the objective right here was to optimize measurement and weight. “We needed to create a chassis that was a lot narrower and lighter than the unique Honda body, together with a a lot narrower gasoline tank within the space between the legs. Basically, our thought was that after you’re on the bike, it ought to really feel like a 600 relatively than a 1000.”
Hiding below the swathes of carbon fiber is a gasoline ‘bladder,’ constructed for this mission out of composite supplies by Pyrotect within the US. It’s the identical sort of system that’s utilized in race vehicles, able to withstanding large impacts and fires. The tank covers, airbox, intakes, and fenders had been all 3D printed by Optimus3D in Spain, after which lined in carbon fiber so as to add structural power.
There’s no subframe as such—as an alternative, the carbon fiber tail part helps itself. It additionally weighs a paltry 800 grams, which is spectacular sufficient to forgive the minimal seat padding.
On the reverse finish of the bike, a small windshield is held in place by a 3D-printed titanium bracket. It has an natural look that appears at odds with the remainder of the construct, however that’s completely deliberate. Bottpower designed it digitally utilizing topology optimization—a mathematical methodology that optimizes the distribution of fabric, primarily based on components like house and the way a lot load the half must maintain.
A ton of labor additionally went into the bits you can’t see. The bike options an all-new electrical system, full with an information acquisition setup. A small Lithium-ion battery sits on the facet of the bike, positioned proper subsequent to the starter motor to eradicate the necessity for any superfluous wiring.
The custom-made housing that comprises it additionally hosts the ignition and begin buttons, and the fuses. With no different switches required, the cockpit wears little greater than a set of clip-ons, the brake and clutch levers, and an analog tachometer. Rounding out the checklist are a pair of custom-made shocks from TFX Suspension in The Netherlands, and an Akrapovič muffler to enhance the Fireblade’s titanium exhaust headers.
Appropriately dubbed ‘Morlaco’ (translated as ‘giant combating bull’), Bottpower’s Honda-powered superbike is as intoxicating as it’s audacious. When you agree, you’ll be glad to know that plans are already underway to construct a worthy successor.
“We’re initiating a small testing program,” David explains, “to work on growing and fine-tuning the entrance finish and to assemble data for growing the following model, which we need to construct with a contemporary engine. It is going to be attention-grabbing to use all of the expertise we’ve gained over these 20 years and see the variations between this bike and the following one, which we hope to finish in two years and never twenty!”
Bottpower | Fb | Instagram |Pictures by Moonbay Movies
