"Ancient And modern rAcing posters covered the wAlls, And rAce pArts were scAttered About …" 16 register today SPRING 2008 The Buell 25th Anniversary celebration is coming up fast. See Page 6 for a complete schedule, then visit buell.com for more details and to register. But don't wait – it'll be here before you know it. SOURCE ON TOUR WITH THE XB12XT ® THE LOWDOWN ON THE FARM BUELL th e HAVING A BLAST AT BONNEVILLE A FAST START FOR MOTO-ST MOVING? Fuell is mailed Standard and will not be forwarded. Please update your address in your owner’s profile on buell.com. Presorted Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Buell Motorcycle Company Buell 2799 Buell Drive, East Troy, WI 53120 buell.com ©2008 Buell Motorcycle Company. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. SPRING 2008 4 Buell Lines 5 Back Talk 6 Factory Buzz FASTRACK 10 Salt Shakers How fast is your Blast®? Not as fast as the “Salt Chicken,” we’ll wager! 14 Go Moto The 1125RTM makes its racing debut in the SunTrust MOTO-ST series opener at Daytona. GEARHEAD 20 Tour de Force The next Buell® Ulysses® XB12XT takes sport touring on a new adventure. 28 Masterworks The Blastard: naked, fast, and beautiful (though not necessarily in that order). 30 Ask Abe Abe hits “below the belt.” STREETWISE 9 Streetfighters 16 Born in a Barn A look back at the (very) early days of Buell. 24 Alaskan Attraction A three-day ride in the “last frontier” was all it took to be hooked for life – on Buell. 16 A vintage look behind Buell factory doors. Editor: Visit Buell Motorcycle Company on Fuell is mailed quarterly. Due to various circumstances, some information in WE CARE ABOUT YOU! Ride safely, respectfully, and within the limits of the Blast, BRAG, Buell, Buell Sport Minded, Cyclone, Different in Every Sense, Firebolt, Matt King the Internet at buell.com. this issue is subject to change. Buell, Fuell, Buell logos, and the Fuell masthead law and your abilities. Always wear an approved helmet, proper eyewear, and Fuell, Get On Get Off, Harley, Harley-Davidson, HD, H-D, Inside Pass The Ultimate are registered trademarks of the Buell Motorcycle Company. No part of this protective clothing, and insist your passenger does too. Never ride while under Track Day, Lightning, Own the Corners, Shark’s Tooth, Signature Series, Slay the Design and Production: publication may be reproduced for any reason without written consent from the influence of alcohol or drugs. Know your Buell motorcycle, and read and Dragon, Sportster, Thunderbolt S3, Thunderbolt S3T, Thunderstorm, Triple Tail, gsdesign.com the editor. understand your owner’s manual from cover to cover. Ulysses, Uniplanar, and ZTL are trademarks of H-D Michigan, Inc. All member submissions become property of Buell Motorcycle Company and will not be returned. Submissions may be published in Fuell. Fuell reserves the right to edit member stories for content, length, and clarity. ©2008 Buell Motorcycle Company. All Rights Reserved. 4 fuell SPRING 2008 SPRING 2008 fuell 5 BUELL LINES » « BACK TALK Readers are an integral part of Fuell.® Whether it’s praise, criticism, or anything else you want to share with other Buell® owners, we want to hear what you have to say about the magazine, your bikes, events, racing, trips, or just motorcycling in general. Send letters or submissions for the Streetfighters section to [email protected], or mail them to Fuell, 3700 W. Juneau Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53208. ® AB@33BE7A34/:: %fuell # I think the Ulysses is a great 0G;716/3:/::3< You know those light gray lines on the map – the ones that represent a road is not necessarily paved? I want to ride those roads. Because they always seem to lead to the most intriguing, out-of-the-way places. Problem is, as a Harley® rider, I’m pretty limited in that regard. Oh, I’ve given it a go. There’s no rule (well, no law anyway) that says you can’t take an Electra Glide® down a dirt road. But you have to be so careful that it’s really not very fun. So when Buell introduced the Ulysses a couple years ago, it really caught my eye. It seemed like just what I needed to take my adventures to a new level, by getting off the beaten path here and there and deeper into the great unknown. And when I was offered the chance to borrow a Ulysses for a day trip, I jumped at the chance concept. But, call me a skeptic. to put Buell’s most versatile bike to the test. 47@AB7;>@3AA7=<A My first thought when I saw the motorcycle was ... hey, this thing’s dirty! Don’t these Buell people know that a clean motorcycle runs better!? To each his own, I suppose. Nonetheless, the first thing I did before the trip was give it a good going over with a damp cloth. I wanted it to look nice for the pictures, after all. The next thing I noticed was how high the seat is. Not a big deal for me (I’m 6'2"), but I wondered how soon I’d get tired of throwing my leg over that lofty cushion. It was very comfortable, however; nice and wide for my own ever-widening seat. With my full weight on the bike, I could just get my feet flat on the ground. Not bad. And it’s so light! Just leaning it left and right in a stationary position I could sense that this machine was built for cornering. On the road, the riding position at first seemed very upright – and I felt a long way off the ground. But I quickly came to appreciate the added sense of control this “active” position gave me. All in all, though, it felt very different from what I was used to, I was quickly starting to appreciate what this unique machine had to offer. Priority one on “Ulysses Day” was a quick side trip to a beautiful, rustic gravel road outside Milwaukee, to get my “dirt legs,” as it were. As I rode back and forth a few times on the two-mile stretch, I started to wonder: What exactly does it mean to be “dirt road compatible”? I mean, clearly one big thing is the suspension travel. TRASHED ROad test It absorbed the bumps very nicely. And after a few minutes I started aiming directly at small potholes. At first I thought my aim must be off, I must be just missing them – because I couldn’t really feel them. But then I realized that the bike was just soaking them up like water. So I aimed for some bigger ones. I felt those, but not to the point where it seemed like either I or the bike was any the worse for wear. But what about traction? I wondered how aggressively I could take dirt/gravel corners on this bike. I mean, without pushing the bike to the point where one of the tires starts to slide (something I was not keen on doing), how would I know when the bike reached its limits? I decided there was no need for me to figure this out right I received a copy of the Summer 2007 edition of I don’t know if you can help me or not, but my away, and perhaps I’d get a better feel for it as the trip progressed. So I took off to the southwest. ¬OTbS`OTSe[W\cbSa7abO`bSROW[W\URW`SQbZgOba[OZZ^]bV]ZSa PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK HINES, MICHAEL ALLEN ® Alas, while I found the riding in Southern Wisconsin to be generally spectacular, I had a surprisingly hard time finding any dirt roads. I had a good set of maps, but they didn’t seem to indicate which ones might be dirt. Fuell, and before I got a chance to read it, my wife husband is looking for a road test of a Firebolt According to the legend, dotted lines represent “Unimproved Road, Trail, or Old Railroad Grade” – which, it didn’t take long to figure out, were generally impassable or off-limits to motorized vehicles. recycled it. Is there any way I can get another copy? XB12R and can’t find one. I have never seen one in What hasn’t changed in 25 years is our mission: I bought my XB12R in March 2007, so that was my Fuell magazine. Can you suggest a source? MISSING DIRT first copy of the magazine. I really wanted to check it Laura Gall I enjoyed the article “Pavement Schmavement” to build the best-performing, easiest to ride, out and have a real copy of the magazine (not a PDF Paddock Lake, Wisconsin version) to hang onto. in the last edition of Fuell. But as I finished it, I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s just as well he didn't flat-out fun motorcycles in the world. Please send me another one ... Laura, you might find what you’re looking for in the find any good dirt roads to ride on.” Seemed a little Charles Moreland “Buell in the News” section at buell.com. This page “convenient,” even. Has it been 25 years already? Sometimes, it seems like only yesterday that I was working at Harley-Davidson on the old FXR platform – Fort Worth, Texas features reprints of a number of articles from the I love Buell motorcycles, and I think the Ulysses® for my money, one of the the best-handling machines The Motor Company has ever built. That was my “day job,” as they say.