With the amount of city street commuter travel and unattended street parking I have been doing lately, I purchased myself a 2003 Buell Blast in addition to the S2R1k. I will write a bit longer of a review when I get a little more experience on it and the standard height seat arrives. As of now, this bike seems like a toy compared with the duc, everything about it is tiny but I find it immensely amusing to tool around on. Power is reasonable, but I find myself at WOT alot. Handlingwise, it is very nimble and just dares me to ride it on sidewalks to get through traffic. The BEST part: went to the local HD dealer (Suburban Motors Harley-Davidson) and purchased a full exhaust, new seat, and some carb jets for UNDER $300. They were really nice there, gave me a discount off MSRP rather than a markup (and I didn't purchase the bike there), and parts were actually available in the US rather than on backorder like much of the Italian goodies tend to be.
Sorry about pics, hold off on the TTIWWOP for now, will have some in later this week (it's midterms...)
What is your fuel mileage like. There have been several reviews of small displacement bikes that get good gas mileage lately but I haven't seen
one on the Blast.
Others report about 60mpg, but I don't have a big enough sample size to get back to you on that yet. You can check out BadWeather Bikers data page for the Blast on this here: http://www.njdot.us/buell/blast/p3data.php
I'll have the new exhaust with a modified intake on with a change in jetting (stock 43/170 -> 45/175) and mixture by later this week so I won't really have stock numbers.
My first (and other) bike is a 2001 Buell Blast. I have to agree with you that the little thumper is a total treat to ride. There is a reason that HD teaches their Rider's Edge class on the Blast. I too find myself at WOT a lot of the time. I get between 55 and 60 MPG, but I figure that I could get better with a little work on the bike. It had a pretty hard life before I got my hands on it.
The best thing that you can do is to replace the bars with superbike bars. The mini-apes aren't really that flattering and the bike is a ton of fun to ride with them replaced.
Congrats on the new ride!
I noticed that the bars were a little ummm... unflattering, but I also happen to know that tommaselli makes a set of clip ons that work; and I already have a pair of those on the monster that I like. I might hold off on that as I know my dad (who is 63) would like to get back into biking a bit and hasn't been on a bike since the 70's. In addition, I really want to ditch the worlds ugliest set of footpegs and make some rearsets, but again the old man issues.
I know what you mean about the footpegs! But I think that you dad would probably find it comfortable. With the stock controls the bike is so neutral in ergos and so speed limited I rarely feel the need to lay down on the tank and a higher windscreen would totally fix that.
I can get about 70mpg out of one.
But I choose to ride the piss out of it, so I get about 50mpg.
There really isn't anything special about this bike to me. It starts, and gets you to point B from A.
The brakes are there -- nothing special. It doesn't have enough power to pull a string out of a cats ass.
The transmission is clunky. There is no feel to the shift -- except having to kick the shit out of it to get into a gear. When your in first you can still press the shifter down 3 inches -- kind of weird.
If you have fillings in your teeth, good luck. It shakes worse than Micheal J Fox at an idle. Gets worse up to its 4k redline, which is very fast approaching, but when you hit it you don't notice, except for the fact that you don't accelerate anymore (btw, it doesn't come with a tach, just a speedo.)
I got it to do an indicated 97MPH... it was the scariest thing I've ever done on a bike. It was so unstable and shook so much I thought it was going to just fall apart. The sad thing is I felt the same feeling at 97, 85, 75, and hell, even 65mph...
I'm really not impressed that much with the thing compared to other starter bikes (Ninja 250...) in the market now. But I don't discriminate and will put on full gear and go knee dragging to the grocery store with it.
I can't disagree with almost everything that you said there. I am probably certainly more sentimental as it was my first ride.
I agree on almost all points. The transmission is very clunky, made worse by a such a long shift linkage and its corresponding long throw. If you look at how many degrees the shaft actually rotates, it is not majorly different from, say, my S2R1000. Hopefully, when I put together some rearsets and shorten the linkage, this issue is improved a little. Of course it will still be clunky and grind occasionally, at least the throw will be reasonable.
You may have some engine issues if you are only redlining at 4k, or you have tach setup issues, since the HP peak is listed at 6500 rpm and when I hit the cutofff, I can definitely feel the power turn off. I don't have a tach, so I am not totally sure where I am cutting off, but it is distinct. While I do think idle vibration is a little extreme, vibration at speed is not that noticeable. Have you checked your engine isolation mounts lately?
Wish it had a bigger tire selection too, but atleast the available Pirelli's are pretty good and fairly cheap.
how the heck did you kneedrag on that bike?
Quote from: sbrguy on October 22, 2008, 08:47:00 AM
how the heck did you kneedrag on that bike?
When you are 6' 4" and you get your fat ass off the seat you can just about knee drag anything.
(I'm sure I look like a circus bear make the beast with two backsing a tick when I'm on that thing...)
Quote from: J3 on October 22, 2008, 08:46:34 AM
I agree on almost all points. The transmission is very clunky, made worse by a such a long shift linkage and its corresponding long throw. If you look at how many degrees the shaft actually rotates, it is not majorly different from, say, my S2R1000. Hopefully, when I put together some rearsets and shorten the linkage, this issue is improved a little. Of course it will still be clunky and grind occasionally, at least the throw will be reasonable.
You may have some engine issues if you are only redlining at 4k, or you have tach setup issues, since the HP peak is listed at 6500 rpm and when I hit the cutofff, I can definitely feel the power turn off. I don't have a tach, so I am not totally sure where I am cutting off, but it is distinct. While I do think idle vibration is a little extreme, vibration at speed is not that noticeable. Have you checked your engine isolation mounts lately?
Wish it had a bigger tire selection too, but atleast the available Pirelli's are pretty good and fairly cheap.
The tranny's biggest problem is who it is made by. The throw is just upsetting. Like dead kittens upsetting...
I have no idea the actual number that I'm redlining at. I just counted how many times left nut vibrated into my thigh in a minute. Gave me a good estimate...
For all the shit I talk about the bike -- I still ride it.
It isn't a "bad" bike -- but it is what you pay for. I can easily go pick one up for 2 grand in a matter of minutes.
It is a very forgiving bike -- which makes it fun to ride. I can jam on the front brake and stomp the tranny 3 gears down and just throw out the clutch and watch what happens. It really doesn't matter what you do to it, it'll take it. Which means I'll get off at the end of a ride with a smile on my face.
However... It'll be 30 minutes after all my friends get to the destination, my teeth will have vibrated out, and my feet will be numb.