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| Photo swiped from Erik Buell Racing's website. |
And Erik Buell Racing, interestingly enough, does exactly that.
And what's more, you can't keep this guy down. What's that you say? The American motorcycle manufacturing/distributing/dealing juggernaut won't deal with him anymore? Did he even let that slow him down? Not hardly. It seems to me there might have been about five whole minutes there where he wasn't working on getting more motorcycles built to suit his vision.
He's like the Terminator, if the Terminator were a motorcycle building bad-ass instead of a robot that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And now he's got a new production bike in the works: the 1190RX. And the MSRP is only $18,995. Sure, that's a lot of money (I could, for example, get an Ural and all the riding gear and farkles I can dream of for that amount), but it's not a lot when you consider what he's offering. To my eyes, the 1190RX is an American-built race bike with just enough stuff added to make it street-legal. He's not trying to compete with a Suzuki budget sportbike (not to knock Suzuki), he's trying to compete with Ducati.
Hot damn. I will be keeping a keen eye on EBR.
6 comments:
he went through hell and back dealing with hd. and no matter how hard he tried, imho, the hd buells didnt ever show what he was capable of creating. im looking forward to hearing/seeing more of these.
I can't wait to learn more. I would be all over an American superbike that can compete with Ducati.
I might even like that better than a Triumph Daytona...
Of course, none of those bikes are likely to be well-suited to long rides. Maybe next he'll bring out something like the Ulysses except even better.
Lucky:
a performance bike would be lost on me. I would never push it past half of its capabilities. If it can do the speed limit +10, then I would be happy. I would prefer a larger tank for cruising, good fuel mileage and not too loud and of course, luggage options
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
I'm a die hard Buell fan, well, at least of the Ulysses. Rumor has it, the next EBR model, AX, will be the new Ulysses.
I'm with Bob Skoot in that I feel performance bikes would be wasted on me. And I'm with you in the fact that I like what Buell is doing, but I can't see myself really wanting one of his bikes. Nothing about this new machine makes me say: "Oooh, me want." But for the sake of American pride I hope very much that there are loads of people who disagree with me.
I especially like that Buell is keeping it within reality in terms of price. It's no good to have an American product that no one can afford (*cough* Mission Motorcycles *cough* Motus Motorcycles). I mean, $19,000 is a bit rich for me, but I think it's reasonable when compared with similar machines.
Good, good, good on Buell. I hope these things succeed.
Bob Skoot - I know what you mean. I suspect that I would never touch the Buell's limits. But gosh it's pretty.
Red - That is excellent news. I will keep my ear to the ground waiting for more info about that.
Chris Cope - I've got a serious case of bike lust for this new Buell. The older ones didn't quite do it for me, but this one does. I have to be honest, if you put me in a room with this bike and a Ducati, and said I could have one of them...
Well, it'd be a tough choice for me.
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