| Author | Message | ||
     Tbowdre |
avail for a few hours with out subscription hellforleather.com | ||
| Sprintst |
http://hellforleathermagazine.com/ | ||
| S21125r |
Cool article. Interesting quote – “The heads we get raw from the original place that cast them, then we machine everything from scratch because all the ports have to be smaller.” Considering the RS has substantially more power you would think the ports would need to be bigger to flow that much air. On the other hand... Johnson engineering had a nice feature a few years back in one of the cycle rags preaching velocity over quantity. Believe Motoman preached the same things with his shrink porting tutorial, although i've always been a mildly skeptical of his practices. Anybody have some good measurements on the 1125 port diameters at the choke point? | ||
| Dannybuell |
THX | ||
| Pwillikers |
Thanks for posting. Great article. I am honestly in awe of Erik Buell. Determination, intelligence, skill, accomplishment, equanimity towards HD and a sincere attempt to fix the 1125 charging issues - unbelievably good job all a round. I am definitely going to buy one of the mass market bikes he builds. I hope he sets his sights on building higher volumes to get the price really competitive and builds a sport tourer similar to the VFR1200 or Motus to reach a large audience. (I'm just getting a bit old for a pure sport bike.) | ||
| Timebandit |
I'd like to support EBR and buy one of the new streetbikes when they finally come along. Like he said in the article though, he's going to have to grow big to make the cost competitive. I hope he can pull it off. | ||
| Jdugger |
I've got to think a mid-20s bike is possible that's substantially similar to the 1190RS. It would have Al wheels, no carbon bits, molded plastic bodywork, no Suter, "everyday" Showa forks and shock, and so on. They have to get away from hand-building the motors. After that, the costs could come down pretty dramatically with some pretty straightforward changes that don't compromise the overall spirit of the machine too badly, IMHO. | ||
| Ratbuell |
The problem with that is, SOMEBODY has to "build a motor". Only economies of scale will allow someone like Rotax to mass-produce a complete engine. Note the word "MASS" in "mass-produce". I have no reason to doubt Erik wants to bring a mass-market bike to life. I also have no reason to doubt that he's already figured out - probably to the penny - what he needs to make happen in order for that to become reality. | ||
| Timebandit |
well doing envelope math, 100 bikes at $40,000 each comes out to only $4,000,000 in revenues. that's not much. consider that he's had to support a staff of 20 professionals for 2 years. just the salaries put a pretty serious dent in the cash supply. that means that he needs a pretty serious markup on the materials to have his sales meet the salary demands. things look tight to me. i hope he makes it. now i'm thinking that i need to go find something to buy from the EBR store to help him keep the wheels turning. | ||
| Smoke4ndmears |
Interesting to consider also that he listed consulting and IT work as what is keeping his guys busy. Assuming IT work is overhead (for the store and such) I wonder what consulting is. | ||
| Sprintst |
Okay, when I posted the correct link, it was already gone how did you guys read it?? | ||
| Zac4mac |
I just clicked the link and read the article. Almost cried when it said END. Thanks, nice read. Z | ||
| Timebandit |
i think you have to enable javascript for the link to work. i wasn't able to find the article the first time i tried. | ||
| Pwillikers |
I agree with jdugger's suggested compromises: "Al wheels, no carbon bits, molded plastic bodywork, no Suter, "everyday" Showa forks and shock" - revert back to most of the 1125's kit. It's up to any situation you're likely to find on the street. I also like the belt drive. This is the first I've owned and I've not oiled or adjusted a chain in 15K miles. Nice! An ST bike would have to have ABS. A modern, non-linked Bosch unit is likely available off the shelf. I'm thinking for a mass market bike the 1125 motor, just as it comes from Rotax, is perfectly acceptable. I don't know what the deal is with HD - ie. if EBR can resell the 1125, but I find it to be a versatile platform. With milder cams, less valve overlap, better fuel economy and a fixed 500W stator, it'd be totally suitable for sport touring. | ||
| Oldog |
a fixed 500W stator, it'd be totally suitable for sport touring. there fixed it for you}} | ||
| Timebandit |
EBR just signed Eslick. Could that mean that the plan is to win this season, then sell street bikes next season? Wouldn't that be great? | ||
| Boltrider |
Twenty at the time of that article. He's added slowly, and I'll bet when he first started, he had a small fraction of the current EBR workforce. But you're right that they've been on a shoestring budget the whole time. The motor issue will be interesting. Do they stay with Rotax or go somewhere else? (Message edited by boltrider on January 11, 2012) | ||
| Lemonchili_x1 |
Really cool interview  | ||
| Timebandit |
I seem to remember that EBR was started with ~6 people. Even after expanding to 20 people it's still a small workforce. They've got design engineers working as CNC machinists right now to maximize everyone's productivity. |
