| Author |
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Jeffb
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 10:21 am: | 
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Mike J.
Do you have a rough number of people who will be riding over to S&S on Thursday? Everyone/Anyone is welcome. I am still thinking that we will leave Sauk around 1 on Thursday and find our way to S&S around 2 or so. I have to look back and see what the plans were for leaving Milwaukee too.
Thanks
Jeff Bailey |
Mikej
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 02:26 pm: |
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Jeff,
So far less than a dozen. I've got a list of names at home. If we keep the number small do you think the S&S Marketing department will give us all a free big-bore kit????? Well, I had to ask.
MikeJ |
Jeffb
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 03:46 pm: |
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Mike,
Well, I don't think that I can promise engine kits, heads or carbs, but I think I might have enough power to promise stickers and catalogs. (Normally free anyway).
Sorry,
Jeff |
Jmartz
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 04:29 pm: |
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I thought we were riding in the morning to catch the SP activity in the afternoon. |
Mikej
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 04:44 pm: |
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Jeff,
No problem, thought I'd suggest it, good for a laugh anyway.
Jose,
I think it's still up in the air, probably be decided Wednesday night for departure time. I think the Sauk activities were scheduled to end at Sauk at 1pm with people supposed to go on self-guided tours that afternoon anyway, so since the Sauk store was scheduled to be a lunch stop it sort of worked out so far to make S&S in the afternoon.
Jeff, would S&S be open to an earlier tour group if people wanted to go to the factory first thing in the morning and then hit Sauk on the way back to Milwaukee? I forget if the S&S web site said to schedule tours in advance, or if they are open to people just showing up that day. I'm certain they don't have the walk-in traffic out there like the H-D motor plant has on Capital Drive here in town. |
Jmartz
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 06:17 pm: |
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Packing suitcase tonight, bike tomorrow afternoon. I am a bit apprehensive about being late. The thought of crossing WI to be told, "sorry its closed" worries me. I don't want to take any risks regarding entering S&S.
Jose |
Jeffb
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 07:49 pm: |
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Mikej
S&S can give tours all day. It is kind of a call ahead thing, but not real formal. I told the front desk that they may be invaded on Thursday by Buells. The morning would be fine. I am open to the morning, but I just thought that the afternoon would work better because Sauk is ending around 1. Like I said though, anytime between 7 and 4:30 there will be people here to give tours.
I was planning on packing tonight, but just blew a primary gasket on a shake down run for the track day. Better get back to work or you may be following a van around on Thursday.
Later
Jeff |
Mikej
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 08:16 pm: |
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Oh that would be great, wouldn't it, Mike and Jeff lead the Buell riders to Sauk and then S&S, Jeff in his van, and Mike in either his own (rusty) van or rusty Toyota with a kayak-thing on top. "No worrys riders, just follow the van, and if you lose it just look for the boat on the roof of the sag car". |
Jmartz
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 09:41 pm: |
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Mikej:
Have you gotten your S2?
Jose |
Jmartz
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 09:50 pm: |
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S&S trip...
Scatterd showers are predicted for all of southern WI for thursday. Let's hope the forecasters are wrong. It is not going to be a washout but we are likely to get wet. Hell!, and I just cleaned my bike. %$#$@!&*^%
Jose |
Tripper
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 10:49 pm: |
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Quote:Hell!, and I just cleaned my bike. %$#$@!&*^%
I don't believe it! Gonna have to change her name. |
Mikej
| | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2001 - 11:35 pm: |
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Jose,
Nope, they are waiting on recall parts. Not sure what parts, but I was told there were 5 recall issues on the '95 S2 and not all of them were in place on the bike. I stopped by there tonight and the bike was still sitting there collecting dust. Bummed. Maybe I'll just stick a Buell sticker on the Honda and say I'm testing some 2003 prototype model components, but can't say which parts are the prototype parts. Then I can initial the tire valve stem caps with "EB" and see if anyone notices. Oh well, life goes on. |
Jmartz
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2001 - 01:54 pm: |
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No problem Mike. See you Thursday. |
Rickie
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2001 - 09:52 pm: |
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Hey everybody,
I know this is kind of late, but here it is. I have an extra double room available at Olympia Resort for Friday through Sunday night. I am leaving at 4:30am tomorrow and have to cancel the room before I leave. If someone wants to commit to the room I will hold it for you; otherwise I will release it to Olympia's waiting list when I leave in the morning. Email me if interested….. |
Gravedigger
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2001 - 03:21 pm: |
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HAS ANYONE ELSE READ THIS CRAP!!!!!!!!!
The official press release follows:
Harley-Davidson announced today the Company has chosen to end its
factory VR1000 Superbike racing program and retire from the American
Motorcycle Association (AMA) Superbike series after the final round of
the 2001 season at Virginia International Raceway on September 28-30...
"Our development team took a hard look at rebuilding the program this
year, and what it would take to bring the VR 1000 to a competitive level
and replace it with a new design. Harley-Davidson has determined the
resources required to do that are simply too costly to pursue given our
other business priorities," said Baker.
Well, Maybe they will finally do the right thing and Create a Buell
motorcycle to race in its place!!!!!
Quite honestly, I think Eric Buell should demand it!!! Picotte is still under
contract for another 2 years with HD. Can you imagine the possibilities
with Pascal on an Eric Buell creation???????
Just found this on motorcycle online. please sign this and let HD know
how all the Buelligans really feel!!!
http://www.petitiononline.com/hdb/petition.html
All people who want to see an American AMA Superbike win, sign this!
thanks |
Mikej
| | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 10:00 am: |
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Well, it's done, the 2001 Buell Homecoming is over. The holiday crowds weren't nearly as bad as it could have been. The H.O.G. Rally was mostly staying downtown and there weren't nearly as many hawgs on the roads as last year during their hogfest, at least it didn't sound like it from home here which is when I really notice it since I hear one of the freeways outside my door. I asked Leslie about Buell attandance numbers and she said it was about the same number of people registered for the Homecoming as last year.
Wednesday and Thursday I was still on my Honda. Rode out to Sauk on Thursday morning after a nice breakfast put on by Wisconsin H-D/Hal's in Oconomowoc. About 7 of us rode to Sauk together, Jeff from S&S led, Jose was with us, 2 Blasts, and me on my Honda taking up the rear. Jeff took us around the north of Madison, I-94 => I-90 => hwy-19 => hwy-14 (I think, might have been hwy-12) into Sauk city. Had a nice lunch put on by Sauk H-D/Buell. Also bought some things, Sauk had put out some sale items that people were grabbing up fairly quickly. Then about 1pm or so after a group photo (my Honda, which I thought I'd parked out away from everything ended up front and center in the pic ) we headed off to S&S in Viola. Basicall took hwy-60 west, then hwy-12 (might have been hwy-14) northwest, then some back winding roads that Jeff knew. The two Blast riders missed the last turn to S&S and I wound up trying to chase them down on my Honda, finally caught up with them in Viola when they slowed way down to 25mph and got them turned around about the time one of the big Buell riders caught up with us as well. (Note: two Blasts with happy riders on country winding roads will totally smoke an old Honda 450 with 69,000 miles and sloppy spoked wheels and drum brakes. )
The S&S tour was great. There were about 8 or 9 in our first group, then another group of 6-8 Buell riders showed up about an hour later. I heard another group with Paul-in-Oz in the group tried to get to S&S as well, but they either got turned around on the back roads, or were having too much fun just riding around and decided to skip the tour (maybe one of them will post their version of the story). We got a tour of the whole plant, including the dyno rooms. The S&S factory is stuck out in the middle of farmland out in the country with no other industy nearby, so they probably employ about half of the local population. A very nice location to work, with a very low employee turnover rate. We almost got to see some "secret" engine, but the engine had a cover/tarp over it and was quickly wheeled out as we entered one of the rooms (who knows what they are working on ). All I can say is that I'd be very comfortable buying an engine from them. The S&S 91" Buell engine is a straight bolt-in, and we were given the rough details of what it takes to slip their 100" engine in our Buell frames. Jeff had his 91" S&S engined S1 dyno'd at Hal's Wednesday night, I'll let him post the numbers, very nice HP/Torque numbers and graph by the way. Then on the way back we swung by Sauk for Jose to get some gear he'd left there, then we sort of split up on the way back to Oconomowoc. We got back to the resort around sunset, me on the Honda, a friend on her Blast, and Pammy in the infamous rental car behind us. As I was exiting the freeway I noticed my Honda headlight was not working, probably from the post-rain mist getting into the old switches/wiring, so I snuck down the shoulder to the resort and parked the dark-Honda and caught a ride home to get the van and retrieve the Honda. Put on around 300 miles Thursday, and I have officially retired the Honda ($400 today's price if someone wants to come get it, trades gladly accepted, as is where is, yada yada yada, ). I should add that there would have been a third Blast in our group going to Sauk and S&S, but his bike exhibited the infamous rocker box gasket leak, so he called Hal's and they were able to get him in that morning with no notice and were able to get him back on the road in the early afternoon, thanks Hal's.
When I finally got home Thursday night I had a message from MC at Hal's that my S2 would be ready on Friday. But I had the special Firebolt tour to go on in the morning as Paul-in-Oz's guest Thanks again Paul. Got to the factory a little after 8am as they were setting up some displays outside the main factory building for the rest of the people showing up later. A Firebolt was wheeled out, and since there were very few people there, and after a little bit of pleading, some of us were allowed to sit on the XB on the ground, not on a stand, so we were able to really get a feel for it's height and weight as we lifted it off the sidestand and upright.  . Very nice. Anyway, more people were starting to show up, we weren't really supposed to be sitting on that particular bike (oops), and we had the Firebolt tour to go on.
In the other building behind the main Buell factory is where the engineering is done, and is where the prototype work is done. From last year I remember the tour guide saying that that building is even off limits to most of the Buell employees. Rex posted a report of the tour earlier, so all I'll add is that we almost got a sneak preview of something else. We were coming down a walkway and I saw someone pushing a Firebolt down an aisleway, and just as the front wheel came into view he got a surprised look on his face and quickly did a reverse and ducked behind a curtained area until we passed by. Then as we were looking at the stress/fatigue testing machines that Rex mentioned I saw them wheel that "secret" Firebolt around a corner with a couple of Buell employees sort of being human shields, I couldn't quite make out anything on it so I'll just say it had a special paint job and leave any additional speculation out of this expose so as not to spread any rumors. After the tour we were told we were free to openly talk about anything we saw, but I don't think anyone saw me see what I saw so I'll just leave this alone here.  Sorry.
The assembly of the Firebolt and the way the bike is put together will make for an extreamly efficient assembly line. I can easily see this thing leading to major changes to the H-D line of bikes. Just from what I saw I think in full production the assembly time for a Firebolt should be about half or less of what it takes to assemble a Sportster, but that's just my opinion. The XB will go together clean and efficient. I asked one of the guys about working on the XB engine for doing topend work, and he said we'll just basically loosen the rear pivot, then disconnect the front engine mount from the isolator and swing the whole engine assembly down from the framework foreward. I assumed there'd have to be a little more work involved like disconnecting gas line and some wiring, but he made it sound like it should be fairly simple to drop the engine down to get at the heads and valvetrain. With the XB frame the way it is, there is no way you'll be able to get to the valvetrain otherwise, so the downswing should make it nice. We then went out front after some videos and talks and a question and answer period to have some photos taken with the test mule XB and the mock-up XB. Then with so many bikes running around I almost didn't think anything of it as Erik hopped onto the test mule XB and rode it off around the corner and back into the protoshop. By the time I realized it was the first time I'd heard the XB engine running Erik was already going around the corner, but by the time my ears woke up it did sound nice. A whole lot of people are going to be very happy with this bike. During the talk in the conference room they gave us Erik's quality guiding statement: "Quality is a delighted customer"EB. I think with the XB, they nailed it. Sunday afternoon at Uke's I thought I heard Erik say he's ordered two Firebolts for himself, and that should say it all. I knew he'd ordered one already (won't say how I knew though), but didn't know he'd ordered two.
Anyway, after the tour I vanned up to Hal's to check on the status of my S2, Yippee. It was almost ready when I got there. When they wheeled it out I did a preflight and noticed a couple minor things, so they wheeled it right back into the shop to take care of those things right away. They then loaned me a '99 S3 to buzz around on instead of making me wait anymore I wanted to ride. I rode the S3 up to Milwaukee H-D to see what was going on there, then around indirectly back to Hal's on sideroads since the Friday afternoon freeway rush hour and 3-day weekend typical traffic was increasing. Got back to Hal's in about 90 minutes and the S2 was ready. Signed a few papers and I was outta there. I have no idea what anybody else did Friday afternoon. I swung by the resort on the S2 around sunset and wandered into the lounge and caught up with Paul and Pammy and Andy and a few others folks. Andy and Cap had some of the Jay raffle tickets with them, I'm not sure how many they sold but on Sunday Cap said they'd done okay. Anyway, after a bit I headed home to get some sleep.
Saturday morning I headed back to the resort on the S2 for the group ride from Oconomowoc to the Pilgrim road plant. Buell had arranged for an escorted ride with some Waukesha motorcycle Police. All the intersections were blocked as were went through. The route was north from the resort on 67, east on hwy-16, east on Capitol drive, north on Pilgrim road. I was told we had about 90 bikes in the group ride, but it sure seemed like more than that. I wandered around a bit, watched some of the Battletrax, watched some of the motorcops run their Police bikes around the Battletrax course (one of them did it with his siren and lights going. ) Then I headed off to ride the S2 some more and get more used to it, I be happy.
Saturday night was the dinner. Started off with the group photo. And seeing that they were putting some bikes into the group photo I quickly got my S2 into the lineup . After the photo we all went inside for a good dinner, pretty good spread of food. After the dinner and after some awards were handed out Erik got up with his Buell band. Leslie said they still needed to come up with a name for the band, I'm thinking something like maybe Buell Bayou or something. Anyway, they sounded pretty good. The band was made up with Erik and three of the Buell engineers. Erik commented that they needed a bass player, and one engineer wavered some until Erik asked him if he wanted to play and keep his job or what, all in fun of course. They played 5 or 6 or more songs and sounded pretty good. Erik said he'd procrastanated learning to play the guitar until about 6 or so weeks ago, then he got the words that there would not be a band playing at the dinner and it was up to him, so after a bit of panic (he said everybody in the engineering offices heard him when he got the "news"), he quickly put the band together and they started practicing and learning to play. After the music and after a few more speakers and a comedian and stuff I headed home for some more sleep.
Sunday I woke up and headed down to Ukes in Kenosha for Brats and stuff. Wandered around the store and shop, bought a t-shirt, ate a little more, listened to the Buell history lesson, looked at about 7 S2's that were in the parking lot, then headed indirectly home. About 60 miles from home to Uke's, about 120 miles to get home.
All in all I thought it was a nice event/Homecoming. The weather stayed mostly nice, a little rain on Thursday, but I only got a little misted on the ride back from Sauk and Viola so I didn't really get wet at all. I heard that a few bikes got layed down at the track day on Wednesday, and at least one bike lowsided on the Battletrax course. Only really heard of one guy getting a ticket, which was mentioned at the dinner by Erik, one of the Detroit people got tagged for 25 over but I'm not sure of what his actual speed was.
I only put about 500-600 miles on the S2 so far, but that isn't too bad for only having taken delivery of it on Friday afternoon. I think I'll stop typing now and go put some more miles on today, I'm getting used to riding it, and I'm liking it more all the time.
See ya. |
Bluzm2
| | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 11:57 am: |
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Mike,
Nice report, thanks. I would have liked to be there, but running short on vacation time and $$ (need to save some for Bonneville).
CONGRATS on the new S2!! We need pic's buddy!
Brad |
Peter
| | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 12:03 pm: |
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Mikej,
....and a blow-by-blow comparison of your M2.
Are you riding it to Bonneville? Silly question huh? Of course you are.
PPiA |
Mikej
| | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 03:48 pm: |
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Brad,
I almost buzzed up to MN today, but decided I needed to do some laundry and wouldn't make it back before the laundry room closed. I was thinking a nice little 600 mile round trip would have capped off this week nicely. I think I'll just settle for a short jaunt up to Beaver Dam and back.
Peter,
It's taken about 600 miles to start feeling at home on the S2. All I can really say is that it's different than the M2. Lower horsepower, but I don't really notice the loss for some reason. Came back from Kenosha yesterday by way of East Troy then wandered west of there a ways before heading more north. Might have tapped something above 90-100 or so, wasn't paying attention to the speedo, just the road and tach.
Found out that I have room under the seat for my tire plug kit and a small bicycle pump, something I couldn't do with the M2. I tried the M2 saddlebags on it last night for a few miles and think they'll work out okay. Next will be mounting the tank bag onto the S2.
Don't know if I can make Bonneville, it's about 1,500 miles or 2,500 kilometers. Either way it's more than a 3-day round trip ride. I'll have to see if I come down with the flu or something. |
Peter
| | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 06:10 pm: |
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Actually Mike,
It's well known and undoubtably documented that this is possibly the worst period of the year for flus.....
I'll have vitamin C at Bonneville for you so you don't have to feel guilty.
PPiA |
Ccryder
| | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 09:12 pm: |
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Just some random shots from BHC01:
Anybody know who this man is and what he is doing to that poor S2?
Indiana Gang
We made it, ahhh!
Yes he did wash it, once.
96ci, Turbo, NO2
Sauk Prarie
Sauk Prarie
They rode double from Indiana. Fortunately, her cloths were small ;+O
What a pair!!!!!
EB plays the Bluz
EB work'n |
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