Whatever your opinion of the product Buell sold/sells to the public, Erik Buell's passion cannot be denied. His video message when Harley pulled the plug in '09 always gets me a little misty eyed.
I still have my 08 Buell XB12Ss that I bought new. Great bike, reliable, fun, good mpg. Wish they were still making them.
03 xb9r here. love my bike, have the race ecm, factory race exhaust, upgraded seat (more padding for longer rides), levers, dropped pegs, breather mod. Wanted to check out the new ones before Hero dumped buell but I hear hes back in business.
Depends on what you're looking for. I hate riding it over 50mph as it runs out of oomph and just can't accelerate quickly anymore. I've got a Jardine RT-1 exhaust, Dan's intake mod (SuperBoot + airbox delete), and have it rejetted to fit the increased air flow and even then I doubt it makes much more than 40HP. It's also a really small bike in general - at 6'1", it does not fit me well at all. With a passenger on it, I was scraping the exhaust on any and all speed bumps regardless of what speed I was going over them. Under 50mph, however, the bike is pretty fun. It's very light and nimble, but then again, so is just about any single cylinder bike. Personally, I wouldn't buy it again - I'd go for a street legal dirt bike over it any day.
The blast would fit me well probably, but I don't know. After having my 750 for my first bike, it's really light and it's really fast. It pretty much does everything I want it to. I don't know how I could switch to a much slower bike, but the blast would be a good little side commuter. The hayabusa is a cool bike and it's cool on paper until I saw one in person, I just couldn't get over how big it is. It's cool, but I don't know how much use I would get out of it. Acceleration isn't really an issue with my bike, and it's not top heavy and I also don't like that stigma that comes with a 'Busa. What did you enjoy most about it?
