Any Buell fans here

[benchmstr]

A friend of mine has a Firebolt. He loves it, loves the torque...and he surprises people on Gixxers, and R1s.

That Buell racebike may never come to be a production bike, if it does, possibly only for race.

you can get it...but its $39,000.....

I did an Iron Butt Association Saddlesore (1,000 miles in under 24 hours) on a 2000 Yamaha R1.

Ouch!!!!!

 

the r1 would be a little better....gsxr's are just too confined, and stiff....i will never take a gsxr that far again...

bench

[Les Grossman]

I remember in 2007 when Buell came to Daytona for the 200 with their custom made XBRR. It had a $31,000 price tag and 1339 cc's of displacement and the AMA allowed it to race in the Formula Extreme class against 600 cc superbikes.

All 4 bikes broke down....

Buell came back in 2009 with their 1125RR liter bike....and won the 600 sportbike class (only because of Danny Eslick's riding). In club racing the Firebolt and Lightning are performance indexed down to race in Lightweight Twins classes against the Suzuki SV650.

I don't think I'd own one unless it was given to me.

YMMV.

[slacker]

I just picked up a lightning with 500km on it.  Got a great deal

[Parker]

I remember in 2007 when Buell came to Daytona for the 200 with their custom made XBRR. It had a $31,000 price tag and 1339 cc's of displacement and the AMA allowed it to race in the Formula Extreme class against 600 cc superbikes.

All 4 bikes broke down....

Buell came back in 2009 with their 1125RR liter bike....and won the 600 sportbike class (only because of Danny Eslick's riding). In club racing the Firebolt and Lightning are performance indexed down to race in Lightweight Twins classes against the Suzuki SV650.

I don't think I'd own one unless it was given to me.

YMMV.

Forgive my ignorance, but why were the Buells racing in a 600 class, instead of the liter class? Is it the the hp?

[tu_holmes]

Great manufacturer until Harley bought the majority share.

[slacker]

Forgive my ignorance, but why were the Buells racing in a 600 class, instead of the liter class? Is it the the hp?

regardless of displacement hp is limited

[Les Grossman]

Forgive my ignorance, but why were the Buells racing in a 600 class, instead of the liter class? Is it the the hp?

Yes...in a nutshell, down on HP compared to weight. The AMA made concessions to Buell/Harley (as the only American bike manufacturer) to try to attract bigger crowds to the races. Earlier pure-bred race models like the XBRR were based off modified air cooled Sportster engines - so they were slotted into a class based on a performace index. Simply put, even with the added displacement they were uncompetitive.

The newer model(s) like the 1125RR use liquid cooled Rotax/Helicon engines - those bikes race in the 1,000 cc class, but they're somewhat overmatched.

[Les Grossman]

regardless of displacement hp is limited

Not quite....the Parts Canada Superbike Championship race series (Canadian pro motorcycle racing) uses horsepower and weight restricted classes, not the AMA series.

[che]

Forgive my ignorance, but why were the Buells racing in a 600 class, instead of the liter class? Is it the the hp?

Because they suck

[Parker]

regardless of displacement hp is limited

I get it. They were making about as much hp as the 600s?

Yes...in a nutshell, down on HP compared to weight. The AMA made concessions to Buell/Harley (as the only American bike manufacturer) to try to attract bigger crowds to the races. Earlier pure-bred race models like the XBRR were based off modified air cooled Sportster engines - so they were slotted into a class based on a performace index. Simply put, even with the added displacement they were uncompetitive.

The newer model(s) like the 1125RR use liquid cooled Rotax/Helicon engines - those bikes race in the 1,000 cc class, but they're somewhat overmatched.

Basically, Buell's got the formula down for the chassis, but the engines suck? Seems like Harley didn't want to kick out funds for R&D of topnotch engine, being that it seems that Buell was to be the sport bike arm and MV Agusta was to be the exotic arm of Harley...seems like Harley's upper management is only good with Chrome and Twins, and doesn't give a shit about Fast, Sport, and Fours. Like their business model only includes what they know and only what they know. Their attempts to diversify have seemed to fail or falter do to half assed doing stuff.