| Author | Message | ||
     Al_lighton |
I picked up my new Barricade Orange XB12X on Friday afternoon. I just put 565 miles on it over the past 2 days. I couldn't thrash it hard as I would have liked, because I needed to break it in. But I did rail a little bit on it in the latter half of today after it had enough miles on it. Ebear will post some pictures later... I drove it the 10 miles from the dealer to the shop, and within 30 minutes of arriving at the shop, the handguards and mickey mouse ear mirrors were gone, replaced with normal pivot HW and CRG Bar end mirrors. Some folks may love the hand guards, and folks that ride in cold and/or wet weather often may think their functionality makes them worth retaining. But they interfere with CRG bar ends mirrors, which I far prefer to the stalk type mirrors, and I think they look kinda dorky. So off they came. My initial impressions with the seat height was that it is no big deal. I'm 5-11 with a short 30 inch inseam. I can't flat foot it on either side with the bike vertical. But my XR400 has a 2" higher seat height, and I have to kick start that beast. THe XB12X is tall, but I'm comfortable with it. Those without dirt bike experience may not say the same thing. The riding position(s) are very comfy. I say positions in plural because the seat allows for much for and aft positioning. The ergos are pretty nice overall, good all day comfortable. But I preferred my S3T with regular S3 bars in place of the S3T bars, and I suspect that I will replace the stock XB12X bars with CityX bars or the like. I just prefer a tad more lean forward than I got with the stock tall Uly bars. Eric (Ebear) and Scott (USroute66) left early Friday afternoon for a cabin up at Big Bear. I left at around 7:00PM to meet them there, but first had to stop in Moreno Valley to trade body work with Don Sabatino. He had picked up a black XB12X the day before, but really wanted Orange. I am not an orange or yellow kinda guy, so I wanted black. We swapped out bodywork on the way up to the mountains, so less than 4 hours into ownership my bike has transformed again into a black version. We had the cosmetic airbox covers off while we were changing the bodywork. You know it has an inlet vent at the front by the gas cap. But that doesn't go thru to the inner airbox. Right behind that vent is the inner airbox wall with no holes. If you've looked at any of the transparent bodywork Lightnings, you've seen a few rectangular openings thru the inner air box. Those holes are the ONLY holes into the inner air box. ALL air entering the engine enters thru those, and they are ONLY on the right side. I don't get it, it seems that having all the air the engine can use having to squish in between the outer and inner airbox covers would have lots of flow resistance. The engine runs great, but it sure seems like it should be starved for air. I don't get it. Swapping the seat was of course trivial. There is a lot of space below the seat to hold tools and such. Nice. I had an amsport tool kit, a T-shirt, underwear, and socks crammed under there and could still get the seat on. The fly screen is retained by 6 10-32 screws, tapped into the aluminum casting. More than one owner will cross thread these. Getting the fly screen holes aligned such that they don't start one or more screws cockeyed is a bit of a challenge. Floating fastener inserts, and/or larger holes in the Flyscreen, would be a good idea. Also, while at Don's bike, I compared a "feature" my bike has that his doesn't. My neutral light comes on whenever the clutch is all the way in, regardless of what gear it is in. Don's doesn't do this, it behaves the way other XB's do. I'm thinking there are a couple pins wrongly inserted in my harness, but I won't be able to diagnose/fix it until my service manual comes in so I can see the schematic. I'm sure it's covered under warranty, and it doesn't impact normal operation at this point, though it is a tad annoying seeing the neutral light flash with each shift. At this point in the journey, I'd gone 50 miles and was able to go a bit faster on the bike. The next 50 miles were up the winding mountain roads in the dark,and late afternoon thundershowers had washed some debris into the lanes, so keeping the revs reasonable was pretty easy to do. Nice cool temps too, so the engine was real happy. They've done a great job on the FI on this bike. The low RPM drivability is excellent. The next morning we rode from Big Bear to Wrightwood and back, part of scoping out the leg on Ferris's trip. Lots of hills, twisty roads, tight 10mph corners on this stretch. Still had to keep the revs down a bit, but the bike is a joy to ride. While I wouldn't call it "flickable", it does corner quite nicely and predictably. It is very easy to drive it smoothly. On the way back up the mountain, I got to drive it in heavy rain and hail. The big meats were confidence inspiring in those conditions. We were soaked to the bone when we got back to the cabin, so we didn't get any other riding in that day. Sunday morning we went out 18 towards Lucerne Valley. That has a really tight twisty road that drops rapidly to the desert. Again, not flickable, but very easy to corner well with. Ebear set up for some cornering shots. I'm sure I broke the break-in rev limits here a bit, but with close to 300 miles on the clock, I'm sure it was fine. It was here that I had a revalation on the bikes handling. With so much front end travel, there is a tendency for substantial front end dive on hard braking into a corner. If you trail brake into that corner, releasing the braking while leaned over can result in a little bit of drama in the corner as the steering geometry changes as the shock unloads. What I found is that when riding twisty roads aggressively, it pays to set well forward on the seat. This does a few good things. One, it sets the weight bias forward, and compresses the front end more. So there is a little less dive to begin with. Two, it corners better with more front weight bias, and three, it puts your feet a little behind you, which feels better ergonomically for cornering. It does, however, put that tall bar awfully close, so arm position is a bit weird. I WILL be putting shorter bars on it. On the way back towards the cabin, I took it 3 miles down a dirt road to an OHV area. This is NOT a dirt bike, it's too heavy, the tread isn't aggressive enough, and it costs WAY too much to be ready to pitch away on a moments notice. I almost washed the front end out in sand, but that's a pretty routine thing on my XR400 too. Other than that, no drama, it seemed to take it all in stride. I've done a lot of gravel roads on my S3, this is WAY better. Another thunderstorm was coming in, so we had to hightail it back to the cabin. As I was passing a line of cars, some old fart tried to run me off the road by swerving aggressively into the oncoming traffic lane while I was adjacent to him. It was clearly intentional, and it was literally inches between his car and me at a pretty good clip. If the thunderstorm hadn't been imminent, I would have followed him to his destination and relieved him of his car keys. But it started to rain heavily again, so we boogied back to the cabin directly. Sunday's major ride retraced the route (in reverse) that the 2002 All Cali BRAG ride took. Lots of big sweepers and tight twisties, with a little bit of rain. The big Uly took it all in stride and was a joy to ride. When we charged up 243 from the 10, I really started to ride it harder and had a blast. We made a brief stop at a gas station in Idyllwild, and I discovered a screw in my front tire. We plugged it at a gas station, and were on our way. We dropped down to 79, which is fairly straight with long sweepers. At this point, I'm at about 475 miles on the odometer, so I rev it up a bit more. I still didn't let it peak past 5k, and largely held it below 4K, but it was quite stable at high speed. We hit 500 miles right at the Hideout, so we agreed that we had to at least go up Palomar mountain since we were in the vicinity. We went up and down the west grade, which is an extremely twisty road. I think one would need to be a very good rider to get a knee down on a Uly, your knee starts pretty darned high off the ground. But I had her laid over pretty far, and she handled it quite well. I was still keeping the revs down a little, generally holding it one gear higher than I normally would. But the engine pulls well even when lugged a little. On this stretch, Ebear was running on fumes on his Tuono when we finally found a gas station in Valley Center with 135 miles on the clock. The XB12X still didn't show a fuel light, so I decided NOT to fuel it there so I could find out when it would come on. Ebear and I departed company at that gas station, I headed towards Escondido. The fuel light finally came on at 165 miles. My check engine light came on intermittently all weekend. I'll hook it up to the technoresearch SW at the shop today to see what the trouble code is. It would go away if I reset the bike most times, but a few times it came right back. It did not seem to affect the bike operation in any way, but it did seem to happen more when it was hot than not. Something isn't exactly right, but it isn't anything that warranty won't cover. If I had one word to use to describe the XB12X, the word would be "balanced". One, the physical balance of the motorcycle is the best I've ridden. Those that have ridden with me know I try not to put my feet down much, something that is even more desirable on the tall Uly. I will creep up in the last 20 feet to a traffic light at a snails pace and try to keep the bike up without support until the light changes. It's a bit of a game I like to play. Well, the XB12X excels at this game. I can come up to a 4 way stop, stop completely without putting feet down, and then go, all without any wiggling of the bars back and forth to keep it up. It is VERY well balanced. But I also use the word "balanced" because of how well it does everything. There are better sport bikes, there are better touring bikes, there are better dirt bikes. But I doubt seriously that there is a better sport touring dirt bike. It does ALL those roles very well, in relatively good style and comfort. If you could only own ONE motorcycle, you would have a hard time finding a better ONE. Ebear's pictures will come today most likely. Al (Message edited by al_lighton on August 08, 2005) | ||
| Odie |
Sweet write up Al. Wish I could get one but the wife is pressuring me to sell my Harley as it is......oh well, someday..... | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
great stuff, Al! can't wait to see the pix.  FB | ||
| Southern Marine |
Thanks for the write up Al, makes me want one even more. | ||
| Oldroadtoad |
Thank you for the write-up, Al. Your shoppe is only forty or so miles form the Casa de Toad, so I may take some time and drop by for a look see as I have this week off, if this is not an inconvenience to you or your business. Thank you again for the mini-review. The Toad | ||
| Eor |
Thanks for the report. I guess it is a matter of perspective, but the fact that you experienced glitches [faulty neutral indicator and recurring check engine light] on your new bike causes me some concern. | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
Toad, you doing the SoCal swing of FBRAT with us? we'll have at least four Uly's in the mix... FB | ||
| Eeeeek |
I play that same stoplight game, Al. Vik | ||
| Blasterd |
Al, Will the flyscreen from the Ulysses fit an XB9SX? I really like the way it looks. Ken | ||
| Glitch |
Al, thanks for the post. I was wondering how the Eor, while I understand your concern, let's no jump the gun. Al, I'm sure will give a complete report right after his warranty visit. It very well could be a loose wire. I'm sure it's not much more than that. "Some settling may occure during shipping."  | ||
| Ebear |
This was the first stop on Saturday, Scott Page (USrte66) on left, Al on right  This is a small aftermarket parts biz in Wrightwood that some of the folks that hang here know. It's a good shot of what the controls look like on the XB12X with all the hand guards and mickey mouse ears gone. Ebear's Tuono in the center, Scotts on right.  It doesn't look so large in this picture, does it?  We got more than a little bit wet. Seriously heavy rain, then hail. We pulled over for a few minutes, then decided we were already so wet we might as well press on.    Mark Mamone didn't bring his street bike, he brought his KTM dual sport. It was pretty muddy up in the mountains.  Mark's daughter Patty sat on the Ulysses for a cute photo op.  The XB12X handled trails like this without much drama..sand was a little tougher.  (Message edited by ebear on August 08, 2005) | ||
| Ebear |
These tires are so STICKY.....they'll work in the DOWNUNDER..!!!!    It was getting hotter by the minute here. While were were screwing around down here taking photos, more thunderstorms were brewing just up the hill.. Note my 30" inseam length relative to the height of the seat. It didn't bug me in the slightest, but I can see how some folks will never get right with the stock seat.     (Message edited by ebear on August 08, 2005) | ||
| Ebear |
Not 400 miles on the tire and it picked up a screw. Not a particularly huge one, but through nonetheless. We discovered it a mere 2 miles out of Idyllwild, and the gas station there had a plug kit. So $15 later, we were back on the road. My tire patch kit and cyclepump fits under the seat with my Amsport tool kit, and it's gonna live there now.    (Message edited by ebear on August 08, 2005) | ||
| Stou |
Very nice pictures! The Uly look like a very fine all around bike. Can't wait to try one. Unfortunately, it will not be in nice roads like that. Here the road are made for an Adventure bike | ||
| 2hogs |
Nice write-up and pics Al. I can't wait until my XB12X, in black of course, comes in next month. I maybe one of those stock seat issues as my riding boots give me ~ a 31" inseam. My only dirt riding was on a mtn-bike and that was many years ago. I've been riding a Road Glide and a Night Train of late and they are pretty low, no worries though I'll just order the low seat with the service and parts manual tomorrow. Cheers | ||
| Al_lighton |
BTW, pics are all ebear's, he let me annotate them. I don't take so many pictures, I don't have much eye for it. Al | ||
| Reindog |
I rode Al's X last night for a quick pop up and down the street. The seat height is not going to be an issue for me probably because I have XR400 dirt bike experience. Both of my feet were flat on the pavement (just barely) when I scootched up to the forward part of the seat. Most people's first impression (especially those with no dirt bike miles) will probably be something like "Omigod" due to lack of oxygen at that altitude. Most will quickly adjust to the stock seat or find a home with the lowered seat option. BTW, my inseam is 32" and I stand at 6' nothing. My XB12X is expected to arrive tomorrow just as I set out for a two week jaunt to Great Britain. Talk about happy/sad! | ||
| 2hogs |
Oh yea, you did say the pics were ebears. Nice pics ebear. Cheers | ||
| Glitch |
Sweet! Looks like the Uly ain't so ugly after all. These pics show more of the bike than the Buell's official one's, to me any way. | ||
| Chainsaw |
Al, I think the screw in the tire was an omen... stud them tires and give us a ride report from a blizzard! | ||
| 2hogs |
Reindog, Thanks for the insight. I want to give the stock seat a fair shake as sometimes 'low' seats are not as comfortable as stock ones. I'm used to being able to flat foot both feet, which maybe a good thing with a bike that is close to 800lbs. One that is ~ 500, maybe another matter entirely. Guess I'll see next month :-) Cheers | ||
| Shotgun |
Al, you made that Ugly look pretty with the handguards gone and barends on. | ||
| Paint_shaker |
Great report and pictures!!! | ||
| Two_buells |
nice story Al, Damn now I want a Black one..... [my Orange one is going to be shipped in 25 days] ....maybe orange with a kick ash air box cover... | ||
| Broodwich |
Thanks for the report and the images. It's just making me want one more. It was good to see the black bike in some more photos. Even though I would go for the orange, it was nice to see the lesser published black version. | ||
| Xbolt12 |
Nice! I love how you: A: Stopped at Cal Sportbike (founders of SoCalsportbikes.com - a generally rice rocket oriented message board with a lot of SD riders who I often disagree with regarding Buells in general. B: Rode Palomar, otherwise known as PIR (Palomar International Raceway) and a regular spot for many of the Buell haters from SCS. LMAO!!!!! If you ran into an older (cool) guy on an MZ at Mothers, he's been waiting to hear from me about the new Buells because he really wants one bad. The new bike must have knocked his socks off if he was up there. I stopped by Saturday and you weren't at the shop, so I figured you were out having fun, but little did I realize how much fun. Congrats on the new bike! | ||
| Blake |
Cool stuff. Thanks for the pics Ebear! Al, that green light was trying to tell you something... maybe... go, go, go and rev it up bay-bee!  Check engine light was coming on due to the overly reserved riding?  Hope that is an aberration. | ||
| Ebear |
Al may be CAREFUL...but he's NOT aberrant!!...well,not Very aberrant!...well OK ,maybe a little!  | ||
| Al_lighton |
One other impression that I forgot to write about that occurred to me riding it in to work today... The thing is pretty tall, but once your moving, there isn't too much negative about it other than that it does slow down the flickability a bit. But one of the major positives is how easy it is to see and be seen. Ever get out of your regular car and into a tall pickup truck, and see how different traffic looks from that high? Riding the Ulysses is like that. You see above cars that you couldn't before. It may only be a few inches, but the view change feels like a lot more. In heavy traffic, the feeling is a good one. The check engine light hasn't come on again, and when I hooked it up to the technoresearch SW, there were no DTC's (current or historical) displayed. So I need to go drive it for a while to make the light come on and then come back to the shop while it's lit to see what it says. Al | ||
| Reepicheep |
I can only imagine the view from the Ulysses. Being tall anyway, I was amazed to find myself seated on my XB9SX looking straight over the *top* of a Ford Expedition... Al... I want to retrofit the new intake on my 9sx. Would you mind popping off your airbox cover and look closely and make sure there are no other paths for air besides that intake around the fuel cap? And take a quick peek at the gap between the outer airbox cover and the frame to see if they cheated that to make more room for air to enter. It's a small gap on my 9sx, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch, but by the time you add that up around the whole circumfrence you are talking about some serious breathing area... |
