New Garage Resident - 2003 Buell Firebolt XB9R

So there's a bit of a story behind this one - I'd planned a trip with some friends to ride motorcycles in the southern Rocky Mountains. The thing is, the jump-off point for the trip is 1,300km away from me, and I didn't really feel like riding the R1 across the Prairies to Calgary, riding around the mountains for five days, and then riding all the way back. But I had a space in the garage after selling the 848 last year, so obviously the thing to do was to buy a bike out west, fly out there, ride it on the trip, and ride it home. Sorted!

 

So I asked my buddy Marc in Okotoks to keep an eye on kijiji for an interesting machine for not much money. A couple days later he got back to me with this Buell. After an in-person inspection by Marc the deal was made, and he took the bike back to Okotoks to his garage/shop. He very kindly put on a new tire, changed the oil and filter, replaced brake pads and bled the brakes - basically a full service. Thanks man!

It was up to me to buy some parts to return the bike to stock. Some previous owner had replaced the perfectly stylish stock turn signals with hideous LED crapbuckets. Sourcing replacements was a challenge - DO NOT BELIEVE TWIN MOTORCYCLES OR OTHER ONLINE VENDORS THAT SAY THEY HAVE REPLICA STOCK BUELL SIGNALS. They don't work - the stock units have a threaded post, the "replicas" don't - they attach with a small screw. This can be made to work on the rear, but not the front - the front signals' threaded posts double as fairing mounts. So the lesson is, buy signals from a Buell Blast! as they will work fine. Expensive, but worth it for the superior stock look.

  

Of course one of the appeals of the Buell is the absolutely wacko engineering that went into the bike. What looks like a fuel tank is actually just a plastic cover for the airbox - the frame holds 14 litres of fuel.

Crazy front brake - "Zero Torsional Load" disc attached to the wheel rim, with six-piston caliper. Great stopping power once the pads were replaced. Advantages (according to Buell) are dispensing with the weight and complexity of a dual-disc setup, and supposedly transmitting brake loads directly through the wheel rim, enabling a lighter wheel. Male-slider adjustable fork is arranged at a 21 degree angle (!)

 

Furthering Buell's "mass-centralization" obsession is the oil tank for the dry sump engine, mounted in the swingarm.

Beefy alloy frame and swingarm eh? Made by Verlicchi and Brembo (respectively) in Italy, apparently. The whole bike is super-compact with a wheelbase of only 52 inches.

Hmmm... not a huge fan of the font Buell used on the instruments. Looks pretty amateur-hour. Small digital display has two trip odometers, the regular odo, and a clock.

Logo on the top triple clamp is classy though.

Engine visible here - it's a fuel-injected 45-degree aircooled 984cc v-twin loosely based on a Harley-Davidson powerplant, but with many features specific to Buell. It's backed with a five-speed transmission and is cooled by a loud fan that comes on after you shut off the engine. The exhaust muffler is another feature of mass-centralization, placed below the engine. The exhaust note is very Harley-like, not something you'd necessarily expect from a bike that looks like this.

See what I mean? The stock signals are quite lovely, not sure why anyone would replace them. In fact I remember back in the day, people used to recommend Buell signals for bikes like my old Honda Hawk GT. Maybe that's why they're so hard to find nowadays!

What's it like to ride? Well, I feel like I can speak with some authority on that after riding it something like 2,700km in the last 9 days, about 1,400km in five days in the mountains, and 1,300km in two days on the Trans-Canada Highway from Calgary to Winnipeg. 

I found the bike really easy to ride on twisty mountain roads. Power delivery is pretty linear but there's not a ton of it - the engine is rated at 92hp at the crank. Fortunately the bike is pretty light, so as long as the road is twisty, rapid progress can be made. For me the bike handled great, very nimble but will hold pretty much any line you want in a corner. Fuel economy in the mountains was outstanding, easily exceeding the 120-mile range reported in road tests at the time. I got 250km out of 9.2 litres at one point. But economy ebbed once on the Trans-Canada Highway. On my last tank I only got 200km before the low-fuel light came on.

While the bike felt great on the mountain twisties, the tight wheelbase and high footpegs grew uncomfortable on the long straight highway home. I was able to last about 100 miles at a time at most. The bike had ample power to cruise above the speed limit, but it's not a mile-eater like the R1. 

So will it hang around long-term? Hard to say. It's reinforced my love for low-revving big twins, that's for sure. But its air-cooled nature means it gets hot on warm days and the five-speed is clunky. But it handles great and it's certainly different - and I think I'll keep it around for a little bit at least.

One last thing - some promo materials I picked up!

"Deeley's House of Buell" was Canada's west-coast Buell dealer, associated with the famous Deeley Harley-Davidson franchise. Can you believe that MSRP though? Fifteen-and-a-half grand for this bike in 2003, it boggles the mind, especially considering Canadian MSRP for a 2003 Yamaha R1 was apparently $14,999. Buell was definitely positioned as a premium-price brand.

Thanks for reading!