| Author | Message | ||
     Jlnance |
I picked up my Ulysses yesterday! When I did, the dealer asked me if I would write something about my experiences with the bike that they could give to their potential customers. I was flattered and agreed. Not having the best memory, I need to write things down day by day, or I will forget them. Since I have enjoyed the An Eeyore's Tale thread by Brad Johnson, I decided to start a similar one to chronicle my own experiences. Unlike Brad, I'm a relatively new rider. I started riding 16 months ago, and have put about 11,000 total miles on the bikes I have owned. Both my other bikes have been Buells. My first was a Blast, which I still own. My next was a Cyclone, which I traded in when I purchased the Ulysses. | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 0 - The Demo Ride First, a little background. I started riding in July of 2004. I took the Riders Edge class from the local Harley dealer, which not only taught me to ride, but introduced me to a company called Buell and a bike called the Blast. Three days after the class was over, there was a Blast in my garage. Five months later, I met a girl. I wanted to taker her riding with me, but the Blast was far too small to carry both of us. I needed a larger bike. Given my experiences with the Blast, I wanted another Buell, and ended up with an 2000 M2 Cyclone. I knew when I bought it that there were better 2 up bikes, but I was planning on doing a significant amount of solo riding, and for that it came highly recommended. The Cyclone was a fun bike, but it definitely had limitations when riding 2 up. Out combined weight caused the suspension to behave poorly. My feet would push her's off the passenger pegs, and she felt like she was going to fall off the back. I'm 220 lb and 6'2". Picture us both on this bike:   The Ulysses was getting rave reviews for it's 2 up capabilities, so I took Rebecca to the dealership so we could try it out. First, I took the bike out solo so I could get used to it before putting her on back. It is a very tall motorcycle. I can flat foot it, but not by much. After the height, the next thing I noticed was how much smoother the new transmission is. It just shifts, with out the clunks and grinds of the Blast and Cyclone transmissions. Also, unlike my other bikes, you can not depress the shifter when you are in first, or raise it when you are in fifth. After a lap around the block, I put Rebecca on the back. She is 5'6", and needed to step from the curb to get on due to the bikes height. One of the first things I noticed is that rolling on the throttle too aggressively in first gear with a passenger on-board will cause the bike to wheelie. Both times this happened, I was pulling away from a stop sign and turning a corner. These being my first wheelies, it is a bit difficult for me to describe them. Handling does get somewhat squirrely, but I did not feel like I was going to drop the bike. The bike handled crossing rail road tracks beautifully. It did not jar me at all. It was a complete non-event. The bike was fun to ride. There were a few twists in the road. We took them at speed and they presented no problems. At one point in the ride, Rebecca yelled, "go faster," which speaks to the confidence the bike inspired in her. When we returned, Rebecca was enthusiastic, claiming it was a different world from riding on the Cyclone. She loved the back rest on the Uly, and there was a lot of room. Enough that she could scoot around if she wanted to. She still had to keep her feet toward the back of her pegs, but it was much less of a problem than the Cyclone. Perhaps the most telling comment was when she asked me when I was going to get it.  | ||
| Blake |
Really cool. I love these kinds of threads. Will be anxious to hear more. | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 1 - Pickup I stopped by the dealership after work on Thursday and negotiated a price for the bike, and the two side bags. I wasn't sure I wanted the tail bag, and I can always add it later if I do. Friday was more hectic. I had to wait for Rebecca to get home and watch my kids before I could leave for the dealership. The dealer closes at 6:00. I arrived at 5:30. It took two hours to finish all the paperwork and related stuff that needed to be done.  This wasn't helped by the fact that I had forgotten to bring the title for the trade in.  Nor that we had to get the insurance company to fax us proof of coverage.  After the paperwork, we set the preload on the rear shock. There is a big knob that makes it easy to adjust and requires no tools. However, it was nice to have two people because you can't see what your weight is doing to the suspension while you're sitting on the bike. We did not alter the front suspension settings. I've heard this is important, so it is something I want to do. But it's not as simple as adjusting the rear. I was ready to get home, so I didn't ask. They asked me to bring the bike back in the following week so they can take my picture and perform the other curtsies they usually do for customers who buy bikes while the dealership is actually open. I'll it adjusted then. The sun was setting when I entered the dealership, so by the time I left it was quite cold. Since I can't even remember to bring the title for the trade in, I'm sure it won't supprise you to learn I hadn't brought any cold weather gear for the trip home. This killed any ideas of playing with the new bike on the way home. I rode it directly back to the house, which is a five mile trip. Two things I did notice are that the head lamps work much better than those of the Blast or Cyclone, and that it is very easy to exceed the 3000 rpm limit Buell recommends during break in. I hadn't told the kids I was getting a new bike, I was going to supprise them. When I arrived home, my daughter came out, looked at the bike, and then says "you got a new backrest." I asked her to get on so I could take her picture, at which point she observes "you got new pegs too." At this point I had to tell her "child, the whole thing is new." She got excited then.   | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 2 - Cold & Cold December really isn't the best time to buy a new bike, at least if you want to ride it. It's a busy time of year. My kids had Christmas play practice in morning and a birthday party in the afternoon. Rebecca and I were attending her office party in the evening. It was also fairly cold outside, and I had a bit of a cold myself. Still, Rebecca offered to take my kids to the birthday party so I could go riding. There was no way I wasn't going to take her up on that. The birthday party was about 30 minutes away, and I wanted to see some of the people there. My plan was to follow the family up there, hang out for a little while, and then ride home via some back roads. The first thing I noticed after getting on the highway is how quickly the bikes revs to it's 3000 rpm breakin limit. Essentially you blip the throttle, upshift, and repeat. I was watching the tach as I did this and all of a sudden the bike wouldn't upshift anymore. I realized I was in 5th gear. I glanced over at the speedo. I was doing a little over 60. It had all been very smooth. I was really supprised I had gotten to 60 that fast. As I watched Rebecca disappear down the road, I realized I hadn't mentioned anything about break in to her. The ride was fairly uneventful. A commute through city traffic. At one point I did get to swerve around a box laying in the road. The Ulysses swerves noticably slower than the Blast. I'm sure I can get it to swerve faster if I put more pressure on the bars. I'll practice that, it's a skill I like to be good at. On the way home I had to back the bike uphill to get it out of the parking space. That was fairly difficult due to the height of the bike. My legs are almost fully extended when they are on the ground, so there isn't a lot of extra extension left for pushing. I got it out fine, but next time I'll back into downhill parking spaces. I blew off the back roads on the way home. I wanted to hang out in a warm house. | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 3 - Moo U Not only is Raleigh the capitol of North Carolina, it is also home to NC State University. As a school with an agriculture program, NCSU owns a large amount of farm land on the outskirts of the city.  The university uses this land as a resource to teach students, but I was interested in a different resource. Dirt roads.  The bike is billed as capable of use away from paved roads. I wanted to see how it did on dirt. I had never ridden any bike in the dirt before, so I don't have much to compare it to. It definitly rides differently on a dirt road than it does a paved one. When I stopped to take the picture above, I locked up the rear wheel by mistake. The bike handled it well, we just skidded down the road for a few feet. No fishtails or any other alarming behavior. Both pictures required riding off the road through wet soggy grass. I did not have any problems with the bike getting stuck. As you drive down the road, you can tell that the tires are slipping around some. It's not much, but it is a very different feel from driving on asphault. I got up to about 45 mph on a straight section. I didn't really want to push it too hard my first time.  The dirt eventually changed back to pavement, and there was about a mile of curvy country road before I got back to the highway. Today was beautiful. The temp was in the 60s and the sky was bright. I enjoyed the ride home. | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 4 - Ride to work I drove the car to work this morning because it was cold. Then I started missing the bike, so I came home for lunch and rode it back to work.  On my way home I decided to test a feature of the kick stand. The Ulysses does not have a safety switch on the kick stand, instead it is designed to automatically retract if you leave it down and ride off. Or so Buell claims. When I got close to my house, I stopped and put down the kick stand. Then I started rolling again and made the left turn into my driveway. I looked down and my kick stand had retracted.  | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 4 - Two Up The astute among you may notice that the days only increment if I actually ride the bike. I've been sick for the last several days and haven't ridden any. Yesterday I managed to walk down stairs for breakfast, which was exhausting enough that I required a two hour nap to recover from it. Needless to say, no riding was done yesterday. I felt better today, much better. And the weather is fantastic. I decided around lunch time that I was going for a ride. I informed Rebecca of this and she said she wanted to come to! This was to be my first two up outing since the testride.  The first issue was how to get her on the bike. When we had done the testride at the dealer, I had parked next to the curb, which had given her a step. That didn't seem like a practical method, so I tried putting her on the bike before I got on. This seemed to work well. We took off down the street. As soon as I looked in my mirrors I realized I hadn't adjusted the preload to compensate for her presense. Other than the mirrors pointing the wrong way, her presense did not degrade the performance of the bike. I retraced the route down the dirt road from my last ride, and the bike definitly handled that road better with her on the back. She prefers to hold on to the brackets of the backrest rather than to me, so most of the time I didn't even know she was there (Is this a plus or minus?) One time that her presence is apparent is when she gets off the bike. I haven't yet found a good way to do this, but I need to. We almost dropped the bike doing this today. Twice. The first time I stopped was when I didn't have enough preload on the rear. This makes it difficult to get the kickstand down because the bike is so low. To compensate I leaned the bike over to the right so I could extend the stand. As soon as I did that I realized I wasn't strong enough to hold the bike up like that, and we started to slowly go over. Fortunatley, she was smart enough to hop off, which allowed me to stabilize the bike. I adjusted the preload and we rode to lunch. This time I let her off with the kickstand up, just holding the bike with my feet. This seemed to work fine. Next we rode back home. I pulled in the driveway, killed the engine and put my feet down. She started to climb off, but after she got about half way off she stopped and started thinking about a different way of getting off.  I could not hold the bike up with her hanging off the side like that. Fortunatley, she hopped off again, and I avoided dopping my brand new bike.  For some reason, I don't seem to have any trouble when she gets on the bike. The first time I had her get on before me. But after that I would get on first and put my feet down, and she would climb up the pegs and throw her leg over. I did not have any problems holding the bike up when she did this. But enough about all that. It was a great day for a ride, particularly after being sick since Wed. The girl likes the bike, which was a big reason for buying it. I'm looking forward to taking her on some more trips! | ||
| Jlnance |
Day 5 - Ride to work After far too much illness and poor weather, today I found myself in the wonderful position of not being sick when the weather was nice. I rode the bike to work. It was nice to ride again, it's been almost a week. It was a typical ride to work. I won't bore you with the details. I will tell you about some of the ergonomic details I've discovered about the bike. First, for some reason, I like starting it while I'm standing beside it. With the other bikes, I've always started them after I'm on then. I'm not exaclty sure what the difference is, but I think it may be the height of the Uly. The grips are at a nice hight to grab while you're standing next to the bike. The bike also vibrates less at idle than my other Buells. You can actually lay a pair of gloves on the seat while it idles, and they will stay there. This is great if you want to start the bike, and put on your helmet while it warms up. Finally, the pegs feel very solid. They are substantially larger than the pegs on other bikes in the XB series. It feels very natural to stand on them while you ride. Tomorrow the g/f has said she wants to take the kids out.  I think another ride might ensue. | ||
| M2nc |
Jim, I have much shorter legs than you so off loading a passenger is a bigger problem for me. What I found works best is to put the bike on the kick stand and stabilize the bike with your feet. Push the bike toward the left as the passenger is dismounting which make sure the bike stays on the kick stand. Also the passenger should stand up with her left foot on the left peg, then swing her right leg over the backrest if it is up. This makes it an easy step up and dismount action and helps the weight stay to the left until she is off or the reverse, is seated and centered. It works for me. | ||
| Jlnance |
Day X - Off to see Greg A friend of mine was in town and wanted to see the bike. It was a cold day, so I bundled up and rode the 11 miles to his hotel. We chatted a little when. Then, as I was leaving, Greg snapped this picture of me:  Do you like the leather jacket? It's not mine. I borrowed it from my g/f, but it's not hers either. It technically belongs to an old boyfriend of hers from 1992. I find it very convienent that he left it with her, because its so warm. My other jacket is a mesh summer jacket. I had been wearing it all year, I'd just put layers on underneath it when riding in the cold. Then I tried a real leather jacket one day. It makes a huge difference! On the way home I found myself on a lonesome road, so I decided to practice quick stops. I usually end up using too much rear brake, which locks up the rear wheel. I did that on my first stop attempt, and the back fishtailed ever so slightly. It seemed reasonably stable given what I was doing. On my next stop I used less rear and nothing locked up. There is a substantial amount of fork dive under hard breaking. I may need to adjust the front suspension, but I suspect that no matter how stiff I make it, the bike is always going to dive if I stop hard enough. Time to go to work! | ||
| Bigdaddy |
Jim, I'm digging through my collection of crap right now,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and I just found a BLACK leather jacket for you w/winter liner. I'm working regular hours Thursday and Friday at the Creekstone facility. The BLACK jacket's yours for Christmas -- call me. G2 | ||
| Jlnance |
Day Y - Christmas Present My boss decide that 2:30 was a good time to quit working today. Who was I to disagree. It was a beautiful day, so I took a long ride around Jordan Lake. I rode about 60 miles, which is my longest trip so far. The bike is a pleasure to ride. I can tell it will be even more of a pleasure after the break in period is over.  I did check to see if I could reproduce the head shake problem that some people have reported. I decelerated from 50 to 40 with my hands off the grips. I didn't notice any shaking. When I got back home I decided to take the Blast out for a spin to keep its battery charged. I haven't ridden it since getting the Uly. To say the riding experience on the two bikes is different is a huge understatement. The Blast is very short and the Uly is very tall, so the positions are quite different. The Blast is easier to flick around. I quickly realized how much I like the new transmission and clutch on the Uly, as I drop the Blast into gear and listened to it grind. I took it out for about a 10 mile ride. Part of that was on I-40. Going 65 MPH on a Blast feels like you're flying and the bikes going to blow up. The same speed on the Uly seems like you're going very slow. Of course sometimes its fun to feel like you're flying w/o breaking the speed limit. | ||
| Jlnance |
Day Z - A Trip To The Zoo The g/f is from Washington, DC. She moved here about 8 years ago, but she doesn't really know a lot about the state. She is also somewhat predisposed to believe we are all hillbillies.  I enjoy showing her the better things in North Carolina. She was watching a show the other day about the gorilla exhibit at the New York City zoo. She declared at the end that she wanted to see the Gorillas. Well, we happen to have a very nice zoo in North Carolina and it has gorillas. I knew she had no idea how big the zoo was when she started talking about what we were going to do when we got back home.  The zoo is in Asheboro, about 70 miles from Raleigh. We hopped on the bike and took off. We have gotten better at getting her on and off the bike and had no problems there. I realized immediately that I had yet again forgotten to adjust the preload before putting her on. But the bike still handled great with her on the back. It was in the high 40s and I was getting cold after about 50 miles. I pulled into a Hardees so that we could warm up. Supprisingly, she wasn't cold. We still went inside and I got some coffee. I noticed some people checking the bike out while we were inside. The is perhaps the first Uly to go through Ramseur, NC:  After our warmup, we continued on to the zoo. Joy of Joys, I passed the 500 mile mark as I pulled into the parking lot. BREAKIN WAS OVER There is a decent amount of room under the Uly seat. I had placed a bicycle cable lock under mine before we let, and used it to lock up our helmets. The back rest support on the bike provides a good anchor point to loop the cable through:  We spent about 4 hours at the zoo. I've got lots of pictures, but I'm not going to post them all here. Suffice it to say, that Rebecca got to see her Gorillas:  Now, for the next part of this story, you have to know how I was dressed:  We got on the tram with several other people. After we got off, Rebecca asks me "Did you see that couple sitting across from us?" I said that I had "Well," Rebecca says, "she turned to her husband and motioned to you and mouthed the word 'chaps'. After he looked at you, and turned back to her, she mouthed the word 'gay.'" I guess she wasn't impressed with my masculinity.  There was one guy at the zoo who's sexual preferences were very clear:  This was one bad Baboon. He had girls all over him. I like to think that if he owned a motorcycle, it would be a Buell. Rebecca feels comfortable enough on the Uly that she can use the camera. Here was her view on the way home:  The fuell light came on 7/10s of a mile before I pulled into the driveway. It was a good day! | ||
| Jlnance |
I left out the best part. When I left the zoo, I was stuck behind a slow car and a double yellow line. After a few miles the double yellow goes away. Remember, this is my first ride where I don't have the 3000 RPM break in limit.  I roll on the throttle in 3rd and pull out to pass the car. The bike takes off. Once it hits about 5k rpm it REALLY starts to pull. Its an "I'm glad I'm holding on tight" pull. It was great. | ||
| Jlnance |
Breakin is OVER  I spent today trying to remove the chicken strips from the tires. I've still got about 3/8" to go.  This bike is Fun. I took it out for about 2 hours this morning, doing a run down highway 42 from Raleigh down to Carthage. It was such a blast that I redid the same route this afternoon! | ||
| Rubberdown |
Nice read Jim. Nice read! | ||
| U4euh |
JIM NANCE YOUR KILLING ME! You keep skirting our neck of the woods, and don't call. RBRDWN-you stop answering your phone did ya? Hope all is well, miss ya. | ||
| Jlnance |
Uwharrie I called U4euh (Jim) and we arranged to meet at the Carthage, NC Hardees. I threw the girl on the bike and we made it down in about an hour. It was a chilly morning, and fortunately we arrived before Jim, giving us a chance to warm up. I took a picture of the girl because I think she's cute. I call this one "lucky necklace."  A few minutes later Jim arrived on his XB9S:  You know someone's hard core when they carry a spare belt on the back of the bike. We chatted a while and then called Rubberdown (Mike) to see if he wanted to ride with us. Mike was out riding his new Springer and wanted to join us. We set off to find him. It seems that whenever I start thinking that I know something about riding a motorcycle, I go on a ride with someone who really does. Jim took the lead and I was pleased that I could keep up, particularly since I had Rebecca on the back of the bike. Jim motioned for me to pass which I found curious since I didn't know where we are going. Then I look up and Jim is next to me. He has BOTH HANDS on his camera and is facing me, taking my picture, as we head down the road. I want you to know that this only intimidated me a little bit.  Jim spots Mike as we approach an intersection. We end up following him down the road for a few miles before he sees us. Then we pulled down a side road and admired each others bikes:  Then Jim lead us through some great roads. We were in the middle of no where. I think we passed one car during the hour we rode. It was twisty too. I was impressed with Mike's Springer. He was keeping up with Jim with out dragging parts.  We stopped for lunch at a Wendys and talked for a while about places we wanted to ride. Then Jim led us back to the highway and sent us home:  It was a great day! | ||
| Rubberdown |
I was indeed a great day and a real treat to share the road with you, Rebecca, and Jim R. | ||
| Rubberdown |
Oh, regarding the Springer keeping up with Jim....Although I was pleasantly surprised with the Springer Classic's ability, Jim and you could have walked away from me at any time! Let's do it again. | ||
| U4euh |
It was a great day,too bad it couldn't have been longer. We only touched about 1/16th of the roads in this area! We usually run these roads in 2-3rd gear, between 4500-redline. I never got out of 5th on this trip, was kinda nice to slow down and just enjoy the scenery! Nice new bike's you two! | ||
| Jlnance |
Post your pictures Jim! | ||
| M2nc |
Great pics, wish I was there. Still waiting for parts. I'm hoping that they come in tomorrow. The M2 rear suspension has sprung a leak and the rebound damping is gone. It still fun to ride, but I have to fix that before I can truly enjoy it. | ||
| U4euh |
 Fixing to head out.  Motioned Jim to move ahead, noticed how comfortable they both looked.  I new there was a straight away around the corner so I hung back a bit. Jim seems to me you feel pretty comfortable with the new Uly. Even with a pillion rider, she loves to ride also makes even more enjoyable for both. See the smiles below:  That's called a Buellgrin! | ||
| U4euh |
Met up with Mike, and like he said"this here is a mix of bikes. I razzed him a bit about the "Old Man's" bike, but deep inside I was jealous, it sure is a beauty:  Then I got to noticing, NOT ONE SINGLE ITEM OF BUELL clothing on. Traitor!  No not for real, Mike knows I like to give him a hard time. I'll ride with anybody on anything. Just love to be on two wheels!(1 sometimes). Jim, really enjoyed you and "the girl"coming down here. Look forward to many adventures together. Too bad " You meet the nicest people on a ...." was taken! M2nc-another day another time, we're gonna all make it to one place at the same time to go riding one day! | ||
| Charlieboy6649 |
Cool thread. Enjoying the read! | ||
| Jlnance |
Jim seems to me you feel pretty comfortable with the new Uly. I hadn't thought about it, but yes, I am. Moving from the Blast to the Cyclone was a much bigger transition than from the Cyclone to the Ulysses. I generally just get on and ride and don't think too much about it. The only times that isn't true are when I have a passenger. The first couple of times we rode I was worried about dropping the bike as she got on and off. Thats not a problem anymore. She figured out how to do it and whatever she's doing works great. The other time is making slow sharp turns with her on the bike. Right hand out of the drive way is a good example. That ones all in my head though. The bike handles that great. It actually turns better with her on the back. But most of the time, I just ride. | ||
| Rubberdown |
Hey, do I hav'ta remind I still have a kick ••• XB9R that I rode yesterday....lol. I knew I had it coming Jim R. | ||
| Jlnance |
How the Miles Fly It took me almost a month to get the first 500 miles on the bike. That was Monday. Today I took it in for it's 1000 mile service. Having the week off has been nice. I pulled up to the dealer and noticed a firebolt in the service lot. I parked next to it since the bikes are brothers.  While I was waiting for Rebecca to come pick me up, I spotted a guy about to demo a Uly. I said hi and suggested a route for him to ride. He told me he had narrowed his bike search down to the BMW and the Ulysses. He was wearing a Honda jacket, so I assume it was the Uly that brought him in. His son in law owns a Buell which this guy works on, so he was familiar with the mechanics of the bike. I left before he got back, so I don't know how he liked the bike. But I hope to be seeing him riding around on a new Uly. |
