| Author | Message | ||
     Kenm123t |
WELCOME Erik Buell Racing ELVES! We hope many are returning Elves. Buell elves put the magic in motorcycles! Has anyone found the hollow tree on the farm? | ||
| Bikesailxski |
Drove a Multi S 1100 through the twisties up and down 4000 ft. high mountain road - not near the handling, confidence inspiring feel or fun as my 2010 Uly X, lowered 1", AND which came with the comfort kit from the factory. Yes, rode an 08 Uly without it on a hot day with the wind blowing from left to right and know what you mean, but the comfort kit made the heat a non-issue.  | ||
| Froggy |
The new Multi 1200 is a totally different bike, and lightyears ahead of the old Multi and the Uly. | ||
| Sayitaintso |
The new Multi 1200 is a totally different bike, and lightyears ahead of the old Multi and the Uly. Yes it is. When/if a replacement for the Uly is made it is going to have a very tough act to follow.... compared to the 1200 Multi, but I have high hopes. Even if you take away the "push button" adjustable suspension the Multi is a incredible machine. But if the new bike is close in performance, comfort, and price (not nec in that order) it will find a spot in my garage. As for the right leg heat.... stop and go traffic (commuting), in FL, in the summer, on an air cooled bike is not much fun. Add in the wide frame of the Uly and its very hot, no matter what you do. | ||
| Fltwistygirl |
"As for the right leg heat.... stop and go traffic (commuting), in FL, in the summer, on an air cooled bike is not much fun. Add in the wide frame of the Uly and its very hot, no matter what you do". Heard. For me riding pants help as does a comfort kit. Still not as comfy as in an air conditioned car. But not as much fun either! If I had the resources, I'd take one of each! | ||
| Bttrthnwrk |
Southern AZ can get and stay nice and toasty during the summer, too. Between the comfort kit and the stick-on foam insulation between the frame (both sides) and the seat, I can get by. Riding pants (mesh) work okay for the open road, but mostly just soak up the sun in the day to day stop 'n' go stuff. Maybe if I had something besides black... | ||
| Court |
I like the Multistrada a lot . . mostly based on the reviews I've heard from Reg Kittrelle. But . . . I'm not unaware that it's a $20,000 motorcycle. I'll bet the folks on Badweb who've bought $20,000 motorcycles could hold a meeting in a phone booth. Just saying . . in the business of motorcycle marketing going past $10,000 is a huge hurdle . . $20,000, for the majority of the motorcycling public, is a big nut to crack.
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| Sayitaintso |
I'll bet the folks on Badweb who've bought $20,000 motorcycles could hold a meeting in a phone booth. I think you just might have something there. Its not nec that the folks here couldn't afford one if they really really wanted one. Its just that $20k for a bike is a whole lotta money and its hard to justify unless you have tons of disposable income. I tend to look at as being similar to the situation you've been going through with cars, its hard to pop for a Porsche when there isn't anything wrong with what you have or the alternatives you are looking at are 1/2 the price and 80% of the comfort/performance (but none of the panache). Price is the main (if not the only) reason I dont have one in addition to the Uly. | ||
| Pontlee77 |
Never forget the chain lubing, and when you need to change the chain and sprockets for the Ducati thats not cheap either. | ||
| Sayitaintso |
Chain and sprocket are the easy part.....it would be going back to needing valve adjustments that would kill me. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
I haven't demo'd the new Multistrada but I really can't get excited over such a complicated motorcycle. How complication and long term reliability can live together is not something I'm willing to believe. AND how the Multistrada could be anymore reliable than my ULY is nonsense. Can't get any more reliable than my ULY has been. At least when I do preventative maintenance on the ULY I don't have to unplumb a space shuttle. Sure the Buell isn't perfect but it starts easily, idles and runs flawlessly, looks cool, and handles better than any other bike I've ever owned. One thing that most of us have taken for granted with our ULYs is that they are a great platform to mod and farklelize. I'll bet Multistrada owners will be very hesitant to mod their bikes like we ULY owners have and not because the Duc is just so perfect(BS). I'd also bet that the insurance costs of those Multi's is sky high in comparison to the ULY. Can you imagine what it will cost to repair a wounded Duc. There is something comforting about riding the toughest built bike around, the ULY. | ||
| Sayitaintso |
Craig, you just brought it full circle....all the reasons you listed are why I'm excited about an AX-11. Keep all the great things about the Uly, bump up the ponies (keeping the low end grunt) and add water cooling. | ||
| Hughlysses |
How complication and long term reliability can live together is not something I'm willing to believe. Craig- I agree with you, but you do own a Prius, don't you? | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Hugh, It does seem hypocritical of me but cars are different than motorcycles. Motorcycles are a form of transportation that let you interact with the natural world much more intimately than cars. When we travel on bikes we pretty much carry what we need to fix them on the side of the road. Cars have such a large infrastructure set up to cater to them, magnitudes more than motorcycles have available. My Prius is just an evolutionary necessity toward a much less complicated pure electric vehicle. Less complicated in the sense that electric motors have very few parts and way less maintenance and are much cleaner. I don't even own a cell phone, mostly because I worry we are becoming unnecessarily connected, and easily tracked. When I'm riding I want to disappear for awhile. The native Indians had the right idea. They had horses instead of motorcycles but they were free and in tune with the natural world. I want a motorcycle that isn't so darned complicated that I'm at a loss to fix it when something goes tits up. Many of us ULY owners have the knack of being able to fix things for ourselves, you being a prime example. | ||
| Court |
>>>Its not nec that the folks here couldn't afford one if they really really wanted one. Just to clarify . . my comment was not directed at the ability of Badwebbers to afford but an observation of empirically derived motorcycle industry statistics. Someone, in the early life cycle of the development process of a motorcycle, has to craft sales forecasts. Buell, as an example, put together terribly detailed forecasts of not only how many S1 Lightning’s they would sell but what offering various frame and body color combinations would do to skew that curve to Buell's benefit. Some of you are familiar with the concept of elasticity of demand and how price and demand find an equilibrium point based on a number of market factors ranging from consumer perceptions (the felt NEED to have something) to availability of credit (can I get it easily without the payments killing me). It's a science and not something I did . . but I was invited to, and participated in, the meetings when we reviewed this stuff. Interesting stuff and suffice to say that the motorcycle curve, at least at that time, steepens as it passes the $10,000 mark . . . you've surely seen lots of $9,999.00 and knew, at least subliminally, that there was something to this. | ||
| Sayitaintso |
Good points and well said.....I took your initial post as saying "Badwebbers have better sense than to drop 20K on something thats only marginally better than what they probably already have and cost them 1/2 as much". I think you hit the nail on the head with; customer perception of value. | ||
| Court |
For a fun exercise . . . put yourself in Erik Buell's shoes at the moment . . QUESTION: What would you build? See how you do at separating yourself from "what you want" and objectively ruminating on what you would build. Imagine . . . that you are spending about $125,000 a week of what WAS going to be your retirement . . you have XXX (days/months/years) you can go at that rate and you are, quite literally, betting the farm, that you can design, test, source, certify, market, distribute, sell, service and support something to refill your piggy bank WITHOUT violating (basically using) any of the "old" Buell parts, pieces or technology. Think of it as a video game in which you either have to win or perish . . a 99 yard return to within 1 yard of the goal is worthless. . . you've got only one play to run and . . . if you come within, say about, 10 feet from the sidelines there are Harley lawyers with Tazers . . . on the other side of the field a deeply depressed motorcycle market that has seen another upstart manufacturer go under in the last 10 days. To help you . . . figure about $150,000 for acoustic engineering consulting and about $40,000 per pass, through the acoustic chamber to meet EPA regs. . . you know better than to arrive in CA for testing and try to "develop" between tests, right? Be mindful . . . this is only ONE of the MANY certification tests you'll have to pass . . and we're talking about just to "sell" . . this does nothing toward getting you homologated to race. I'll say it again . . quoting Court from 1995 . . . "when you have a really good, well sorted out and engineered motorcycle . . you are 3% of the way toward starting a motorcycle company" | ||
| 7873jake |
Who was the upstart that went tango uniform within the last 10 days? | ||
| Sayitaintso |
Personally, I would have picked up my ball and gone home. I know I'm not as talented or ambitious, and much more risk adverse than he is. Those are a few of the reasons why I look up to and admire the man the way I do. As for your question specifically, I'd follow my heart/passion. Mine is in sport touring, not racing. So, my path would most likely be a little easier, but no where as satisfying as seeing my creation on "the podium". I would focus on fun (read power/handling), reliability, and comfort. Now to the part about getting it approved,. I'll freely admit my ignorance when it comes to EPA and other standards/certifications that must be met for distribution. However, if CA is as draconian (compared to the other 49 states)as I've been lead to believe I'd be sorely tempted to write that market off as not being cost effective, whether it is the biggest fish in the pond or not. You can eat a mighty fine dinner with a bunch of little fish caught on a Zebco rod and real as opposed to a 300lb monster caught with a $1,000 Penn set-up. Edit: Are you talking about Big Dog? IMO they were riding a fashion craze, not much more. They never seemed about the bike or the ride, just the style. (Message edited by sayitaintso on April 12, 2011) | ||
| Court |
>>>>Are you talking about Big Dog? IMO they were riding a fashion craze, not much more. They never seemed about the bike or the ride, just the style. Perhaps but . . they made more motorcycles than Fischer, Motoczyz, Confederate or any of the others . . from what I can tell.
In addition . . . I'm sure the folks here didn't miss the news, this last Wednesday about the woes, and eroding stock price at Harley-Davidson. Again, in my PERSONAL OPINION, what interests me most is the variance between what they PREDICTED and WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED in a short period of 90 days. It's not the crummy market that bothers investors . . it's the latent indications that a company DOES NOT UNDERSTAND their market. Anyway . . we live, quoting Albus Dumbledore, in interesting times. Here is the WALL STREET JOURNAL article. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Court, I'll just wait and see what happens next Tuesday on the 19th. I've done well with HOG since 1985. | ||
| Buellerxt |
Quote: in the business of motorcycle marketing going past $10,000 is a huge hurdle . . $20,000, for the majority of the motorcycling public, is a big nut to crack. Unquote Harley cracked it with easy credit for un-credit worthy, marginally credit worthy, and quite credit worthy folks, with a considerable number in the first two categories. When you couple the loss of a lot of future potential sales from those first two categories, the aging boomers who already bought their Hogs and re-lived their youth a bit, and are through with buying new Harley's for different reasons, and the high cost of Harley's 'nostalgic', and increasingly 'bad boy' bikes, their projected sales' appear to be very questionable. Time will tell, of course, but I could easily see Harley sales fall to 100,000 units/year, or less, in the next few years. | ||
| Froggy |
What is the problem with $20k bikes? People buy $20k+ vehicles all the time. BMW seems to be doing well with a good chunk of its lineup over $20k. My Uly was over $20k by time I left the dealer.
Funny, both my 1125's have been lightyears more reliable than my XB's. Even my Blast, which is even simpler than the XB, has been the least reliable machine I have ever seen, period. I'll take a bike with top shelf reliable electronics over a "simple" primitive obsolete inferior unreliable piece of garbage any day. | ||
| Sayitaintso |
I'll take a simple bike with top shelf reliable electronics.......and made in America. If thats not possible, I'll follow Froggy's lead. | ||
| Court |
>>>What is the problem with $20k bikes? People buy $20k+ vehicles all the time. That's true. And people, by the way, buy $300,000 cars all the time. I went to look at a car the other day and had to wade through over 100 (yep, I took pics) brand new Rolls-Royces, Lamborghini and Maybachs. . . to quote the dealer "with the market doing what it's done . . we can't keep them in stock". But . . and the point is . . they sell, in relative small numbers and require much more (lets be honest, what do you think one of those Porsche or Mercedes AMG hard cover "brochures" cost to print?) money, staff and effort to market and add tremendous risk to the matrix. Shift your paradigm young Jedi . . most folks, naturally, think of the motorcycle business from the perspective of BUYING, not selling. If you had . . .it was your sole source of income and your mere survival depended on it . . would you rather have a $10,000 S1 Lightning to sell or a $35,000 FLHTCUI/XLT? I used to go Crappie fishing in my farm pond near Willard, KS . . . I knew to alway fish where I saw the "boil" (all the fish flopping over each other out of the water_ and seldom went without my favorite breakfast . . . Crappie about 2 minutes out of the water, cooked in a black skillet over a fire in butter, between a couple slices of bread. My cousin always went for the "Granddaddy Bass" and usually shared my Crappie. | ||
| Bikesailxski |
2011 1200S Multi has max torque (87.5) at 7500 rpm, the Uly X has its max torque (85) at 6000 rpm. I find this to be a very noticeable difference in how the 2 bikes perform. The lower rev power is more of what I find enjoyable in a motorcycle, having enjoyed 21 bikes, singles and V-twins, since the mid 60's. Mr. Buell surely is and should be applauded for listening and responding to his customers' feedback and for incorporating great engineering and creativity in an American made machine. My ex-Harley engineer friend said: "Buell had a lot of new stuff going on back then: the XB engines, the Blast single cylinder and various new cylinder heads. It was certainly the most intense and innovative period for H-D product development. There was a lot of really cutting-edge engineering being done; in contrast to the limping-along pace of the development of the Sportster Evolution engine in the early '80s. As an old Sportster guy, I had a special appreciation for the XB9R. In showroom-stock, noise and emissions-legal form, it had the highest output per cubic inch of any push rod engine this side of NASCAR and could literally run all day long at 7000 rpm without trouble. Your 1200 would probably hold its own against my V-Rod in a drag race and would certainly out-handle it in the twisties. It's a real shame that H-D had to shut down Buell. They had really begun to develop a loyal customer base and respect among the international motorcycle world." | ||
| Froggy |
Me too, the Uly is pretty much at redline at 6000 RPM, screaming along, while the multi still has plenty of headroom. At peak torque, the Multi is producing 125HP, while the Uly is producing a measly 97. thats about a 30% difference in power, and the Multi has plenty of room to continue. At lower RPMs the bikes feel similar in power, but I am relying on my butt dyno. Court, naturally a lower price unit will be easier to move, hence part of the reason why Honda sells more double digit CC scooters than Ford sells cars. My hangup was that $20k seems to be a magic glass ceiling, once you hit that you have an entirely different segment of buyer. People will bawk that a loaded GS1200 Adventure or Multistrada will easily break 25 grand, but then they will go and spend twice as much on a luxury SUV. | ||
| Xb9er |
The uly is a perfect bike and had the near perfect price tag. I'll match my uly up against any $25,000 BMW any day of the week. All TC options and motorized windshields and electronic suspension is not needed for real world riders. | ||
| Whisperstealth |
Froggy, For me, a 20K bike would be out of my range. At least for the foreseeable future. I would be looking at a big payment I could not afford. A 10K bike is doable, and fits much better. At 15K it is pushing it, But if Erik Buell Racing came out with a 15K bike that works for me, I would make a real effort to buy one once the Uly is paid off. I plan on a motorcycle being my primary form of transportation, but still need a cage for deep winter. I couldn't afford a 20K car either... | ||
| Sayitaintso |
People will bawk that a loaded GS1200 Adventure or Multistrada will easily break 25 grand, but then they will go and spend twice as much on a luxury SUV. Because to them, the bike is a toy/status symbol and the SUV is a necessity. My guess is that they typically put less than 5k miles on a bike in a year. IMO the difference between a 10k and 25k bike is much more evident than the difference between a 25k SUV and a 50k SUV. |
