| Author | Message | ||
     Ridenusa4l |
have you ever attempted to I.M. Erik when he's online and does he have the time to talk converse with you?? just a little something i was thinking when i saw him online...pondering to I.M. him lol Jake | ||
| Two_seasons |
Can you be cogent at 20 years old?  The only reason I ask is I'm old and obsolete according to some on this board. I won't mention any names but his initials are Froggy | ||
| Kenm123t |
HEHE we can get him thrown out of moms basement with a wild Bueller party! I really want to shoot all his pretty pony stuffed animals and posters. There JUST WRONG lol And the ice dropped Uly so WRONG! lol  We have no frog emoticons OH custoadian Can you fix that ? Probably get banned for teasing Froggy lol | ||
| 01x1buell |
he can deal with it, i heard he had some fun in the snow in past years.  | ||
| Xl1200r |
I sent a message to him a while back, before facebook had a chat function. we went back and forth maybe twice each. If you kept it short (and sent an e-mail instead of a chat) I bet he'll respond. He may be busy, but I think he likes the psuedo rock-star following he has with Buell enthusiasts and enjoys sharing stories when he can. | ||
| Swordsman |
Dunno about the chat (I turned it off, hate the thing). But Like xl stated, he does respond to messages. I have one saved. How cool is that? ~SM | ||
| Sifo |
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| Ratbuell |
Erik is typically very good at responding. please...respect the man. he's busy. if you just want to say 'hi'...send an email that he can read at his leisure, typically with "no response required" in the subject line so he doesn't worry about having to get to it right away. | ||
| Court |
Actually . . . he is amazing . . . nearly to a fault. He invests a couple hours every night answering folks, solving problems and responding to people around the world, many who don't own Buells and some who think he's a "famous motorcycle mechanic". The last time we were there he spent about an hour diagnosing a problem with a Sportster in Europe. A fellow had written as a last resort. Some of you recall the photos a couple years ago when the 2 fellows from Europe took the old (I don't recall the names of the bikes) around the world. These bikes barely ran and one had a problem in Wisconsin and basically needed the cases split and rebuilt. Erik heard about it, went and retrieved them, fed them hosted them, rebuilt the bike and got them back on the road. He loved it! As a former Barton mechanic . . he was in his glory. He's also . . and I've a pretty famous photo over the desk that our own Mr. Haughton will remember . . . . the first to drop whatever his schedule is ( in several cases HD big shot affairs) to help a Buell owner. The photo was at Blue Groove NW when Erik saw something on a bike that concerned him . . . the next thing you know . . he has this poor guys bike in parts, has canceled his plans and refuses to leave until it's fixed and fixed right. Fixing something right . . . . even an old clutch with leather inserts . . has gotten him fired from at least 2 jobs in the 60's. The first was the case of a sleazy dealer . . . they had a used bike for sale with 6th gear out of it. The told Erik to put something in the crankcase to muffle it and tell the guy it was a 5 speed. He refused . . . . and was fired. In the next case . . . and this one is my favorite since it was the same shop where he about got in the middle of a gun battle . . .he was working on one of the old clutches that had leather inserts in the friction element . . . they "wedges" had to be inserted and seated perfectly. He . . .(well before the first time he was ever dubbed a "genius") placed the damn thing atop a glass display counter and was tapping the inserts in with a tack hammer when . . well, you know the rest of that story. He, in his day, made significant contributions to the unemployment numbers . . if only for a short time. I know many top executives and many gifted people in many motorcycle companies . . I cherish the stuff the President of Ducati used to send me and miss my friend who was pretty much calling the shots with Honda NA . . but I've never met anyone as genuine and giving of his time as Erik. The damn thing is . . . he's never left the "true enthusiast" stage. Left to his own devices . . he'd be with family, friends and customers laughing and riding. I've always admired that. | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
...I've a pretty famous photo over the desk that our own Mr. Haughton will remember... I do. REALLY need to get a scanner and start posting up some photos from those days. ...I've never met anyone as genuine and giving of his time as Erik. +1,000,000. FB | ||
| Slaughter |
Nimbus Motorcycles - Wikipedia It was way cool to read about Erik helping these Danish crazies get their machines together and back on the road again. | ||
| Court |
Lots of great memories . . .I was with Henrik Saturday. He and I met when I was working for Buell. He had an S3T the dealer couldn't get sorted out and HD Customer Service was getting nowhere. Everyone was frustrated and his bike vacation was quickly approaching when it was turned over to me. He was surprised when, after driving all night, I showed up 900+ miles away with a brand new bike for him, took his bike and went to the airport to pick up the top Buell tech, Dano Lang. Dano spent the day with the bike and literally made it PERFECT. The new swingarm that had been sent had a small cosmetic flaw and Dano called "no joy" (anyone at Buell can do this), had another overnighted and he and I spent the day sight seeing. The fun part was listening to someone telling Dano . . "well, it's not that bad" and him explaining we were not in the business of making "fairly good" motorcycles. The swingarm arrived the next day . . . Dano flew home, I drove back to East Troy and Henrik went on vacation. The part of this that I still enjoy was that I had to ask no one, needed no "buy in" and had no red tape to do "whatever it took to make it right". That's the way Erik Buell does business. If you have the responsibility, you have the authority. I've certainly had Erik Buell shaking his head a couple times and I've blown a couple but we've pulled off some damned amazing things and I've never been accused of sitting around waiting. He still gets a scared look on his face when I walk in.  | ||
| Bearracing |
I have got and few back and forth inbox's with Erik Buell on facebook. I have also chatted with him in the chat box a few times on facebook as well. Most time its early saturday or sunday morning. Or late in the evening on week days. Some times i catch him on holidays too. So YES he does talk to us on Facebook. My advice though... dont bug him to much cause you can make a good thing go away. | ||
| Davegess |
Court, as I remember it you had you had Erik doing more than shaking his head a few times. And more than a few folks at H-D looking for weapons. My favorite is the time you "stole" about 100 bucks of saddlebag hardware and went to Daytona. A bunch of frustrated owners got a free fix, were converted to "Owners for Life" and a couple folks wanted you walked out of the building for theft! Those were the days. I remember a good vendor getting bad instructions and causing what could have been a big crisis. Erik was livid and I was dammed if I was going to let him talk to the vendor before he calmed down (I took Erik about 3 minutes to go from pissed off to having a couple of possible solutions; you just wanted to keep your head down during those 3 minutes) I kept calling my self on the phone and getting a busy signal till we got to the solutions phase  | ||
| Spiderman |
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| Whatever |
+1 Spidey... would you call up the CEO of some company to 'chat'... nope. Erik about knocked me off of my seat when he said thanks for a letter I had sent him right before homecoming. I figured he did not know my name... but it was cool to see him smile at what I wrote. |
