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2006 Buell Ulysses

Friday, 18 August 2006

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Buell Ulysses

2006

We did actually ride it and our group played cat and mouse with each other pretty much all day - traffic free roads saw us playing roadrace silly bugger’s too (I swear this thing backs into corners like a pro AMA supermoto). The U’ took all this and more, and most bikes survived our hi-jinks, some a little worse for wear. It’s basically a plump supermoto... you can get away with some major silliness on this bike too (isn’t that why we ride bikes?) Sure, it’s got a serious side, the fact that you could enjoy some big mileage on this seat, a seat no less, that had some quite hi-tech engineering. Seat mapping was used in its design, a test procedure that highlighted pressure points and hot spots. I’m not sure how average (or hot) my arse is (though some of the female Buell employees have above average ones) but I was truly comfortable all day.

The seat can’t nab all the credit though. The suspension up front was a somewhat plush Showa fork with an extended 6.5 inches of travel. The rear enjoys similar travel, with an easily reached fist sized preload knob for on-the-fly adjustments. Three-way adjustability for and aft will aid in personal set up and the maximum load capacity for the Buell is a Muell-like 453lbs. With the optional luggage, comprising of twin lock-able saddle bags and rear top box, cross country touring should be a relatively easy accomplishment, especially with no upper loaded speed restrictions like some other brands, namely the Ducati ST series.

That suspension makes the bike’s a tall one though, the seat height is almost 35 inches and most people will be opting for the optional 2 inch shorter seat version. The ergonomics are almost perfect for this style bike, with the foot pegs being 3 inches lower than previous XB’s. Steering effort is minimal and the company saw fit to add a little more rake and trail to keep things composed, especially with the extra leverage afforded by those MX style bars. Passenger accommodations are very good too. The rear subframe has been stretched 2 inches (to match that stretched swingarm) and the consequent real estate advantage offers a nicer perch for dual sport touring.

The rear seat back/parcel rack/thingummybob is a splendid piece of simplistic (unlike my grammar) engineering that is so handy, you can’t believe that no one has ever thought of it before. The rubberized rack rotates forward for a compact rack to carry your incidentals, rotates 180 degrees backwards for a luggage rack, replete with tie-down points for bigger items or sits bang in the middle of both positions for a comforting (and certainly safer) upright seat back for your passenger. Very clever, very versatile and almost unobtrusive.

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