NCR’s Leggera (“lightweight”) is a pretty exclusive and pricey thing to start out with, weighing in at 347 pounds and priced around $76,000. But Hattar’s customer, an experienced dirt-track racer, wanted to explore the boundaries of what the NCR team could do. The donor bike, a 2009 Monster 1100S, was shipped to Bologna, and 200 emails, many photoshop renderings and a long-distance phone bill that probably read like Michael Steele’s bar tab later, a totally different bike started to take shape.
How do you strip 100 or more pounds off a street bike? Two elements are key: the first is a fat checkbook, and the second is a large supply of titanium, that light, hard metal so beloved by aerospace contractors, and by Poggipolini Group, which manufactures titanium fasteners and other parts. The Leggera has plenty of the stuff: frame, swingarm, exhaust, connecting rods, even engine hardware and cam-belt pulleys, all in an obsessive quest to shave the last gram. Even the side stand (a $4500 item) is titanium.”We wanted it to be a real ‘motard,” said McDonald, “so I talked to NCR to find out how I could make it lighter.” That led to a titanium swingarm and a single front 320mm brake disc, “and that took a little time to convince the customer,” McDonald recalls. A single front disc? What is this, 1975? Not at all, says McDonald: when the disc is a $1500 ceramic item and the caliper is a top-shelf $2100 Brembo monobloc (with titanium pistons) and the whole bike weighs but 295 pounds “with a splash of gas” in the stock Hypermotard fuel tank, you don’t really need the extra unsprung mass of the second brake. “Why do I need two front brakes when the bike is so light? When he rides this, it’ll be 40 minutes at a time with the front wheel up in the air.”
When titanium is overkill, other materials come in: the bodywork-which went through eight versions to get it right-is all carbon fiber. The plan was to source full-carbon Dymag wheels, but that company went under and BST items, carbon with aluminum spoke centers and hubs, had to do. NCR has submitted wheels of its own design to the EU for approval.
With that magic trick explained, you’re probably still wondering how to extract 116 rear wheel horsepower out of a 2009 Monster 1100S motor. Again: fat checkbook. That will get you a one-piece billet crank (stroked 3mm), 13:1 pistons, custom-profile cams, a high-flow exhaust and a redesigned airbox (with ram-air). Fueling is by Marelli ECU and fuel-injection, reprogrammed by Marelli’s techs at the NCR factory. Euro 3 emissions? I got yer Euro 3 right here. Still, the motor somehow runs on 91 octane pump gas. The final bill: $140,000. Worth every penny, for the right guy.