To mark Kriega’s 25th year we’re looking back on some memorable moments. This time, when we sponsored a Pikes Peak race team
When Kriega were approached by Bottpower to sponsor their attempt to compete in the 2017 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), the idea immediately caught our imagination.
The PPIHC is one of the legendary races, comparable to the Isle of Man TT. Like the TT it takes place on a public road, but this one leads to the summit of the Colorado mountain that lends the race its name.
The course is 12.42 miles (20km) and made up of 156 turns, with a finish line at 14,115ft (4302m), that’s only 500m less than the summit of Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe. The finish line is often above the clouds and way beyond the treeline. The track is utterly uncompromising, and the race is now only competed by cars and trucks. The last motorcycle class to race there competed in 2019. Too many high-profile tragedies spelt the end for bikes at Pikes Peak.
Kriega chose to jump on board because the XR1 bikes the Spanish firm were building and planning to race were muscular street trackers, powered by Buell V-twin engines with unique, minimal frames. The Pikes Peak Project, dubbed the XR1R, was going to have the best of everything: a factory racing engine from Buell’s XBRR road racer, carbon wheels, titanium wheel axles, magnesium intake manifolds, ceramic fork legs…
The project was led by the company’s founder, David Sánchez, a motorcycle race engineer with extensive experience in CEV (the Spanish Championship), World Championship Moto2, World Endurance Championship and more series’ around the world.
The company’s name comes from the Battle Of The Twins (BOTT) race series that was popular from the 1980s into the early-2000s. As part of the project, Kriega created a range of Bottpower luggage and accessories, with all sales going towards funding the race team.
Bottpower lined up Travis Newbold, a Pikes Peak specialist and Colorado native, to race the bike, flying him to Spain to test, and give input on the bike, before the June race. Travis had already raced another Buell-powered special, the Ronin, to a class win and second overall in 2015, and had competed on his own supermoto-style Honda CRF450 previous to that.
‘The first day we practiced the medium and top sections,’ says Bottpower’s David, ‘Practices in Pikes Peak are quite particular because during the day the road is open to tourists, so the practices take place before the road is open, from 5am, just as the sun rises, to around 8am. This means it is necessary to wake up around 3am. Of course, at that time, at around 3000/4000m (10000/14000ft) of altitude, it is quite cold. It is hard for everyone, but mostly for the riders, because the ambient temperature is low and many times the asphalt is literally frozen.’ Snow is visible on the roadside in the photo above.
The race bike was tested on the mountain, and at a local racetrack, to sort out niggles, and allow Travis as much seat time as possible. The only time the racers run the full 12.4-mile course in its entirety is on race day, and they only get one attempt.
It all led to a nerve-filled race day. David remembers, ‘The start moment arrived and once Travis disappeared into the first corner we only could watch a monitor showing the section times, waiting for him to appear in each of the sections. The last one (a roughly 3min section) was extremely long for me, until he finally appeared on the screen. He was in first position with a time of 10:28! There was a lot of happiness and hugs between the team. We still had to wait for the two official KTMs and Bruno Langlois’ Kawasaki, which finally were faster than us. Chris Fillmore, on one of the KTMs, set a new race record, so finally we ended in the fourth place overall, a very good result for a motorbike which was completely new and almost with no development time. Also, it was our first time in the mountain. Fortunately, Travis had a lot of experience in Pikes Peak and he did a smooth and clean race, without big moments.’
Quoted at the time, Travis added, ‘I am very happy to have raced the BOTT XR1R to a big class win and fourth overall motorcycle up the mountain. We worked very hard through multiple challenges and minimal time testing and I am very proud of our finish. All the bikes finishing in front of us had not only factory support but much more practice both on the mountain and before the race so I feel that we are very glorious victors indeed!’
Watch Travis’s full race run above.
Photos by Jon Wallace and Larry Chen
Kriega is celebrating 25 years of innovation, design and manufacture of specialist motorcycle luggage. Formed in 2000, and still based in North Wales, our products have continually set the industry benchmark for quality and ruggedness, balancing strength and lightness to serve the most demanding, high-mileage riders.