Peter Egan mentions his Buell Ulysses quite often in the pages of Cycle World magazine. I notice this perhaps because I own a Ulysses as well - an 08 XB12XT to be exact. The "touring" version of the softroader. Egan's writings often agree with my own take on the Uly and also Buell in general.
One thing I've noticed as well is, beyond the love for the bike, there is an overwhelming respect for what Buell had accomplished with the HD motor that rides in the fuel-filled frame of all XB's. Torque is often mentioned but there is something else beyond the insane power upgrade of even a factory XB12. An HD 1200cc Nightser, though Harley doesn't really list HP figures anywhere, is basically a 60-65HP beast. This is the same EVO-based engine as the Buells were using. But Buell managed 103 horses and even an improvement in torque and redline. And, dare I say it, less vibration.
What of the HD engine is left? Well the uneven idle, for one. I'm not complaining - the sound in generates is bonkers-crazy. It fits the personality of the rest of the bike as well. The fact that the turn signals bounce and flop, the bike walks backwards by itself, and the windscreen (a Madstad setup on mine) shakes itself into a blur only adds to the sense that this isn't a normal ride. You are in for a treat, it burbles. Something different.
And in the realm of "different" is the chassis. It should be noted that Buell intended the XB to be turbo-charged. The frame was designed with this in mind and signs of it exist in all XB frames. The XB9 retains a large cutout in the frame where the piping would have been routed to the intake. It is interesting to consider how different things would have been with a factory turbocharged American sportbike out in the wild. HD still would have offed the brand, but Buells would have been challenging liter metric bikes on the straights as well as decimating them in the curves.
And curves, I think, are where my Ulysses really lets me know what it was meant for. I can bomb down any street anywhere without a problem and in great comfort. But when a corner comes up something happens. My bike knows I'm about to throw it into a sweeping right hander, or lean it over further for a quick left hand turn. It knows, it leans with aplomb and bravado, it takes that corner like nothing else on earth. This chassis, then, was meant to take those guys on metric bikes of any size to school.
There are rumors that HD is realizing they need to attract the sportbike crowd. The irony is that since they let the Buell brand go, they have nothing to offer in this range. Erik Buell now operates EBR, a brand all his own that CAN offer the bikes he had always intended (perhaps not a turbocharged air-cooled HD motor...). And HD is left to a fading demographic that prefers chrome and pirate outfits over capability and engineering brilliance.
I start up my Ulysses again. In that exhaust note is the sound of HD crashing and burning. Buells are gaining respect again and the more people know about what they were supposed to be, and more to the point how much Erik Buell crammed into them, the more HD loses potential customers of the younger generation. I eagerly await EBR's next creations. And perhaps part of me wants there to be a lumpy HD engine in the frame. But only if a turbine sits near it.
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