RE: [ST] Buell Ulysses (and Lightning) - long

["Baysinger, Jeffrey S (Jeffrey)" <jbaysinger@xxxxxxxxx>]

I just rode a Ulysses and a Lightning over the weekend at Cycle Fest in
Copper Mountain, CO, and was not impressed at all with the powerplant.
All the articles talk about the low end torque, and how that makes it
such a great street bike, so fun in the canyons, how snappy and "right
now" the throttle response is anywhere in the rev range. Bollocks. Maybe
it was poor FI mapping or the altitude, but my experience with both of
these bikes is that there was a severe lack of torque at anything below
4k rpm, and keep in mind that these things redline at 6500. Off idle
hesitation was terminal - I would NOT want to ride either of these bikes
in traffic or on a gravel mountain pass. Kept on the boil, they were
okay, but vibey as hell at any RPM, and for that, just plain annoying.
Even my dead rich and tuned for sea-level operation 20 year old VFR had
more punch on the same roads, on the same day. (I'm looking for a
Sprint, still ride the old Viffer).

The chassis, on the other hand, was excellent on both bikes. With the
engine screaming (in pain, perhaps?) and out of the way, the bikes
really shined. Very stable at any speed, soaking up bumps without
feeling floaty, and very willing to carve up or down mountain passes,
inspiring a lot of confidence the whole way. After just 10 miles on the
Ulysses, I was plenty confident to start jumping on the brakes with the
rear end squirming a bit on corner entry. The Lightening, being
essentially the same bike, felt just the same and I was having a blast
from clutch-out. One thing that bothered me about the Ulysses is that it
seemed to take a lot of effort on the bars to get the thing to roll into
turns. It wasn't a hesitation to lean in, as it rolled in fine once you
got it going, but it took a big shove on the bars to get it tipping in.
With the leverage of those big wide GS type bars, I wasn't expecting
that at all. What surprised me more is that the Lightning did NOT
require that same effort, or anywhere near it. With narrower bars, I
expected the opposite. Effort was still a little high compared to my
VFR, but nowhere near the Ulysses.

To answer a few questions from earlier in the thread (you must be
interested if you're still reading):

- the Ulysses' wheelbase is 2 inches longer than the "standard" XBs at
54in. Neither bike handled poorly at any speed (between 0 and 95
anyway), and in fact handled very well at low speed. I'd think a very
low CG plays a big part in their good low-speed handling.

- Cycle World's 9/05 feature talks about the drive belt a bit (pp44),
which was developed new for the bike in cooperation with Goodyear. It's
"stronger and more resistant to damage caused by ingesting stones
between belt and sprockets." It's apparently more flexible than their
normal belts, so the belt stretches and conforms around the rock, then
just spits it out the other end, whereas similar sized rocks would tear
the old belts apart. This new belt is standard on all '06 XBs, and
accounts for the lifetime warranty.

Before I sound too much like a salesman here, I'll remind you that I'm
looking for a Sprint (or maybe Tiger, but prolly a Sprint) still, and
after riding them, wouldn't consider a Buell. If they put a better
engine in the thing, maybe.

- Jeff in CO
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