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Court
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 04:46 am: | 
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Or you could do as the fellow I went to the "unveiling" with . . . simply buy one of the originals. There were about 200 made and it's estimated there are about 120 currently running. He rides his.
The New York City "unveiling" was PRESS EVENT (how I got invited) and yes the bikes were unveiled some time ago. If anyone wants, in fact, I'll post some pictures of them 2 years ago during design and development.
The New York event was primarily cause, well boys and girls, the *IS* the capital of the media world. An event was conducted in Anaheim for the motor press which comprises about 0.0000438 percent of folks who read or watch anything. But Madison Avenue lives in Gotham so the crowd was composed of lots of folks from "Popular Mechanics" "Mechanics Illustrated" and some of that group. As much as we may hate to admit it in terms of reaching people, take a look at the circulation of Popular Science sometime and the demographics. Several years ago Buell engaged a firm to determine what the best 3 mags for Buell to advertise in and none of the 3 were cycle rags. Take a crack at what % of the people who are registered motorcycle owners actually read moto rags.....
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Dynarider
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 04:50 am: |
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A good circulation for a moto mag is in the 400,000 range. To put that in perspective, HD sold 300,000 or so bikes last year. That means the actual market for the mags vs the owners on bikes is very very small.
Course look at the motorcycle population in general. I think we make up something like .02% of the US population. |
S320002
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 09:14 am: |
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Rocket, you Druid. How's it going? Blow up the Duc yet?
Rocket, what I would like to know is; have you had it to the dragstip yet? I hear the Duc's dry clutch is pure hell when it comes to drag racing. Keep us informed. |
Captpete
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 01:00 pm: |
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Paul,
The boat engine we blew up was a 25-year old, 12.5-liter Volvo. It had never had the heads off and was still running perfectly.
My buddy, Charlie, who owned the boat, had one of his minimum-wage fish house guys, who show up for work when they’re sober and not incarcerated, install a 12v wash down pump in it. The first attempt, he placed it above the water line, and that didn’t work so hot. Next attempt, he placed it where it belonged and that worked a little better. (Unfortunately, Charlie is a hands-off type manager. Sits in his office talking on the phone, waving his arms around giving orders, and stalking dumpy, middle-aged women on the Net.)
I came on the scene later, spent a couple of weeks rigging her out for long-lining, and then Charlie & I took her out into the sound for a little shake-down run. I was driving, and bumping the throttle up in increments to see how she would act and eventually what she would do hooked up. At one point, Charlie stuck his head into the house and asked me to turn the wash down pump on. I did that and thought no more about it.
I finally got to where we were running wide open and I was pretty happy to see her showing 14 kts. against about a two-knot tide. But then I lost a couple hundred rpm. We had had some trouble with the throttle slipping six months prior to that on the way down the coast from NJ, and I thought I had remedied that situation by shimming the Morse control head, so I didn’t worry about it. Just made a mental note to go back in there and tighten it up a little more when we got back to the dock.
A few minutes later, I thought I heard a change in the engine sound and pulled it back to an idle. At an idle, it was obvious that it was self-destructing. The kill solenoid had probably died years ago and no one had bothered to jury-rig the typical pull-string, so in order to kill the engine you had to pull a deck plate and squeeze down through it to kill the engine manually. (My ‘TO DO’ list was still pretty lengthy at this stage.)
I beat Charlie to the deck plate, popped it open, and discovered we were about to sink the damned thing. I hollered to Charlie that we were a couple of minutes from being on the bottom. We were only a hundred yards from the marsh grass, in the middle of the summer, so my only concern for myself was that there was no way I was going to be able to take my tool bag with me and that was going to be a couple of hundred bucks down the drain.
Charlie squeezed through the deck plate down into waist-deep water to shut the engine down while I went aft to the fish box to see if I could find out how the water was getting in. The only thing I could figure that would put that much water in there so fast was that we had wrung a shaft and the stub had beat a hole into the hollow keel. Then, Charlie popped up through the deck plate and shouted for me to turn off the wash down pump.
Turns out the guy who had installed it had forgotten to tighten the hose clamps on the discharge side of the pump and we not only had a hole in the boat, but were pumping water into the bilge through it!
Later on, Charlie mentioned that when he had asked me to turn that pump on it had squirted about a ten-foot stream and then quit. He never investigated why, and went about piddling with something else on the back deck.
Them Volvos don’t do so well with a crankcase full of salt water. It jerked a liner and destroyed the block.
But, to be honest, shame on me for leaving the dock without testing the high water alarm system. I know better. Especially knowing Charlie. It took him 76 days to get a new engine installed, and then gave it to me to go fishing with three days left in the shark season. That’s not even enough time to get the rig-out bugs worked out of it...
Like forgetting to throw a come-along on the deck before we went fishing. (Consequences Here)
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Turnagain
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 03:23 pm: |
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Captpete,
In hearing Pammy's description of your Buell Saga, I've come to the conclusion that a portion of the Bermuda Triangle is directly over your head -- the above adventure proves it. 
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Rocketman
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 04:57 pm: |
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Paul , Greg you're both kidding right? Hell you don't but a 916 to ride! You buy it to put in an art gallery. Well someone told me that's the thing to do with 'em.
Truth is guys I've mothballed it until spring. Right now I'm in the middle of screwing together a super hot street motor for the TVR and I'm finally going to start work on rebuilding the big Buell.
Yeah the 916 can wait but I doubt i'll be taking her to the strip but I'll let you know soon enough about the clutch performance in the traffic light GP. For now though I prefer to keep the Duc a turn key event - according to you lot best accomplished by not riding her at all 
Rocket  |
Snail
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 05:56 pm: |
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Capt. extra water is always a rush. Damn near did the same thing a couple years ago. Gen set filled up and the deck lights went out...that was my first clue.
Still find it hard to believe you could blow up 8 engines in one bike. That's gotta be some sort of record. How could anything except maybe a broken block do that?
Rocket, you're a slave to fashion. |
Nevco1
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 07:44 pm: |
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Rocket...just an opinion, but I would beat the hell out of the Buell and save the Duc for when you are stylin' and profilin'.
Don't know about your neighborhood, but replacement Buell parts are the bargain of a lifetime compared to the Duc's.
Like I said, just an opinion. |
Rocketman
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 10:35 pm: |
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Ducati parts are pretty easy to come by over here. Hell some shops break brand new ones!
Rocket |
Captpete
| | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 10:19 am: |
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Paul, I know, I know – eight times. And don’t think Wes and Pammy are too proud to seek 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. opinions. You would be amazed at the amount of time Wes spent on the phone with some of the best folks in the business trying to figure this one out. But the details are their story to tell if they wish, not mine. I think at this point all I can do is work on my karma. (I probably need to do that anyway.)
I’m not trying to one-up you, but I got a lot of de-watering experience (Don’t ya love the CG? They don’t pump a boat out; they de-water it.) during the 16 years I owned the wooden dragger. One time we also got the gen-set pretty deep too, but not enough to kill the engine and the generator was slinging water all over the engine room. But the damned thing was still making electricity. Still had lights and AC pumps. (Happy Day)
(No more wooden boats for me!)
Turnagain, Nah, that’s not it. My head’s just a little pointed. (Never realized that until my hair fell out. But it’s not all bad. Now I can quit beating up on myself about not being able to carry my books on my head like the rest of the kids in grade school.)
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Budo
| | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 12:12 pm: |
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quote ' Hell some shops break brand new ones!' When Rocket says break you know he means to turn a bike into parts. They don't have salvage yards, they have breakers.
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Budo
| | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 12:14 pm: |
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'But the details are their story to tell if they wish, not mine. ' I for one would really like to hear that story. Sounds like book material. Comon Pammy, tell us pleeeeze! |
Tripp
| | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 05:57 pm: |
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after hearing pete's story i am scared to death about a mystery engine blowing nightmare! i blew my motor last year and hope it never goes again! nobody could tell me why! i think she was low on oil(maybe) and i have been notoriously evil with revving the crap out of the bike in neutral(no more) and running it top speed 138 for 15 miles at a time(tach was @ approx 6499.9999, in the yellow anyway) sooo i am probably partially responsible for the engine failure not to mention i am the 3rd owner of this bike. anyways, not knowing what caused the failure is downright terrifying! even still i don't blame it on buell or h-d, i plan on being real nice to my buell and i think i'm going to buy an early 80's cb9 or 1100 to beat on! something i don't care as much about. at this point i will never sell my cyclone it's the coolest damn bike out there for tons of reasons, and i really can't understand why buell gets bashed soo hard and soo often! check out december's sport rider for instance(as well as any magazine that has anything buell in it(besides hd mags like american iron)) here's a quote on the new xb12r versus a duc "most bikes rake and trail numbers are clustered around more conservative settings not because their designers pulled those numbers out of the air but because those numbers work." -andrew trevitt, senior editor
this is typical of any sportbike mag that i've read now on the other hand v-twin, harley type mags seem to really like buells. i think all the bad hype seems to trickle back into the forums and such, too bad, any bike is a cool bike and buells are definitely the coolest! |
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