A Buell Cruiser? Hey! It could Happen, if I had my way.

[seruzawa]

I thought that a sportbike was simply a bike designed primarily for sport style riding.



Maybe there's some new defintion that the power ranger crowd has come up with.

[Buzglyd]

Personally, I'd like a Supermoto bike with hard bags, a cd player and cruise control.

[jungkvist]

Though, youÂ’re points are valid, and understood, I am considering several things.



In the future, HarleyÂ’s popularity may begin to plateau, along with sales and profits. While a certain market-segment will always continue to remain loyal, growth will be hard to maintain, as the motorcycle landscape diversifies and younger people move up into the Harley-demographic. And, ItÂ’s going to take a balancing act to keep both of these groups happy. Positioning Buell, as HarleyÂ’s innovative R&D subsidiary, would allow forward thinking designs to be brought into play for, younger customers, while not pi$$ing off the older ones.



As for Buell, while I donÂ’t see them as ever building a Dresser, I do think, that if they mellowed out the geomitry and added some aminities, they could they could create a very nice sport-touring package, using their frame, and pave the way for Harley to introduce, said, frame into its line up.



As for me, I'm not much of a cruiser guy but, from a visual point of view, I think a Harley cruiser would look very cool...

[gbrummett]

This is just rumor mill since it's second hand but...



I have heard that there are three water cooled V-Twin XB Buell test mules with a new longer swing arm running around one of the commonly used H-D test tracks.



Supposedly it's an all new water cooled from the ground up designed 1,000cc 90° V-Twin using a redesigned XB bike.



Could be interesting...

[jungkvist]

I think the BMW R 1200 GS might cover that one. DonÂ’t know about the Cruise-Control, but the CD player wouldnÂ’t be too hard to hook up.

[jungkvist]

And, by the way, I'm not NUTS!



I took a MMPI test, a while ago, and it came back Eccentric. In other words, I'm crazy by choice, rather than by pathology. So, THERE!

[sarnali]

The bike you're describing is the new 1200 Sportster. Throw some bags and a windshield on that and you have a light weight touring bike.

My opinion is that they should call the XB1200 Lightning and Firebolt an XLH and XLCH Sportster and call the current 1200 a Harley Roadster and do away with the Buell brand all together.

As LR stated, the future for Harley is the V-Rod in place of the twin cam engine in all models except the Heretige Softtail. That will take a mental paradigm shift for The Faithfull, but after riding a modern hi-po VRod engine equipped bike, wrapped in an excellent Harley touring platform they might come around.

The biggest challange IMO is the perception that a Sportster is a girls or beginners bike by a lot of HD RUB's, when in fact it's more bike than most of them could handle with their kpail like two years of experiance, including a 150 mile weekend here and there.

[sarnali]

They jst tell you that because no one wants to upset a nut

[tomk2]

Hey gb.... I was on a group ride a couple weeks ago & talked to one of yer fellow XB12 Buellistas who ponied up the $$$ to Nallin Racing for the full stage 3 treatment. his bike dynoed at 120 hp and 100 ft/lbs of torque to the rear wheel

[Buzglyd]

I agree Harley should call Buell a Harley. There are still people out there that have no idea what a Buell is or that it's remotely related to H-D.