Buell could have slotted themselves into the quirky with small market appeal, and yes I would appreciate that. Instead they ran up against jap 600's in the Superbike series. Believe it or not, racing is $$$ and by doing this, they automatically threw themseves in front of that squid train. Ducati is racing 1200's against 1000's and 848's on 600's. That is a lot closer than 600 vs 1200. However, who said even that was even competetion.

Yes I have heard HD reliabilty is worse on paper than in real life. However I am yet to see a really ignored and abused HD last worth a nickel. Like we do the GS'es. Most jap bikes even in the repli racer state of tune, hold up well with abuse and neglect.

Once again, the HD motor was holding em back till they went to the Rotax. The gas/oil in frame/SA was so cool. The rotax bike is just Fuughly.

A older buell (pre rotax version) with a parallel motor, or even a SV1K motor will be awesome. Or, figure something about the fughhhly sumo radiator shroud and get back to me. HD motor bike looks good, works mediocre. Rotax one, looks awful, works great (I presume), Simple reason it didn't work.

I am OK with odd and weird bikes, and even I hated the rotax Buell. That is bad news for em.

Cool.
Buddha.

i just loved , any hd engined bike, cause most of tehm i can do a top end rebuild without removing the engine , bmw can do this, as well as the gold wing or other boxer type engines too plus it makes its pwoer LOW on teh rev scale. , you dont have ot flog it to get its power from it

Quote from: NF11624 on October 17, 2009, 09:53:41 PM


I understand your reasoning... but Buell's own philosophy is that they were making 'American Sportbikes,' and I think that when you look at sport bikes, you have to consider the Japanese models (even if you don't just limit yourself to the super sports and above).  Compare an XB9 to an FZ6, ER-6N or SV650 and you get great looks, standard seat positions, and excellent performance and reliability.  And thats not even considering the European bikes - Ducati, BMW and others all make equally capable and much more desirable (by the general public) bikes than Buell - for a small price premium.

Yeah, I should've worded that better. They were making sportbikes, along the line of the FZ6, ER-6N, and SV650. Even the firebolt which has the fairing and clipons, is a bike that I'd still consider more of a standard sportbike like the SV650S. They have been focusing on the sportbike crowd, but that's because the standard/naked market is barely existent in this country, and even if they knew they were just making standards, they'd have to know they didn't have a chance trying to market them towards a virtually non-existent market. There were just too many factors stacked up against them that I feel they could have gotten over if one of the variables were not present. They could've gotten away with the unreliable american motorcycle reputation if people liked naked bikes here(Triumph is a good example of this), they could've possibly gotten over the naked bike market issue if the bikes were reliable enough for more people to consider trying them. Either way, focusing on the sportbike crowd was their only real option, even though convincing the sportbike crowd that they should want a bike with personality was a long shot, and not nearly as fun as trying to convince the Harley crowd that their bikes are too heavy and slow.

I like triumph, especially the parallel twin cruisers.
Buell built some great chassis. But too bad he didn't have the freedom (possibly the common sense too) to make a good street bike inside of that chassis.

Yamahon: A lot of bikes can have a top end done in the frame. Most kawi's and even some suzuki's with some mods done to the cylinder studs. The GS may be the 1 exception. The yamaha XS650 I am working on needs to have cyl studs welded to the nuts, then we pull those out and replace them with bolts, and that will allow the thing to get pulled wihtout getting the motor out.
Ease of repair has been touted as one of the virtues of a HD motor, but I dont think the japs are that far behind in comparable work. One time a clueless clown argued wiht me about modding a GS vs a HD sportster. I showed him the bike I had open in my garage. He went, man that is not much harder than a HD at all. Like cams, carbs, pipes, etc etc Add it all together and its was almost the same. Of course my neighbor had a dyna for a long time and he had no clue about it. But on his DR he was surprised how easy some stuff was. And he said some cases it was impossible to get a HD working right, like one cyl could suck the mix right out of the other cyl at certain rpm's.

I hope Buell comes back with a TRX motor in that frame ... 03-06 was it, XB 9 with that TRX in it. Nothing else needs to be changed. heck, dont even need the 5 valve, 4 is plenty, just stuff that one in it and sell it in the US. Even call it a buell I dont care.

Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on October 19, 2009, 08:27:22 AM
I like triumph, especially the parallel twin cruisers.

I'm surprised to hear you say that. Why haven't you ever mentioned like you like parallel twins before?? 

Yeah, I think it's just a good example of how two companies with similar reputations and their fingers in the same market had such different results. Even though they still have their problems, the Speed/Street triples do great because they've got the European market behind it that loves naked bikes, where as Buell has the American market, which loves sportsbikes and cruisers, and rarely anything in between. If Triumph was American and Buell was European, I feel like we'd be having this same discussion but with Triumph on the losing end of it instead. The only real difference is that Triumph has a really fast motor for their street bikes, but most people don't really care because if it doesn't have a full fairing they refuse to believe it's fast.

A proper 400-500 twin with a lot of modern features, most notably fuel injection and some good economy oriented innovation as well as creature comforts in cols weather probably will sell even in the US.

Yea Buell's frame is oriented toward a big motor. May not be ideal for this line of product. I am nearly sure they could do that to a GS. FI and good sensor driven everything. Of course it prolly has to be water cooled.

Cool.
Buddha.

Well, that's too bad, I have seen Buells on the road.  Would I buy one?  Probably not, I had a HD already.
Wonder how long the V-Rod line will last.  I WOULD buy one of them.  But never an air-cooled big twin again (slow, heavy, expensive, antiquated paint shakers).