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Posted by Kenn Stamp
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Monday, 10 September 2007 |
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Page 2 of 4
Finally we get released from the tech overload (note: excited people really like talking about what is exciting them) and we make a dash back to the rooms to get our gear. Then it's on the bus to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to pick up the bikes for the street riding portion of the press launch. 
While we are on this bus ride let's talk about the styling. Seeing the 1125R in pictures does not do the bike justice. Is the bike pretty? No. An MV Agusta F4 is pretty, the 1125R has a look that I would call purposeful. The front fairing looks super wide at a head-on angle. The side pods, while not looking very integrated with the lines of the bike, serve a twofold purpose. First they serve as the air scoops to direct air over the radiator. The second function is that because of where they are located they cause a high pressure area at the front of the bike. This area is located between the front forks and solved the issue of where to put the ram air scoop. If you were to get down and look between the fork tubes you would see a oddly shaped inlet which is where the high pressure air goes at speed to give the motor a few extra ponies.
Buell designed the bike to have what they call Quiet Zone cockpit aerodynamics using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). The front fairing design gives you a nice quiet place to work in. Riding the 1125R on the street really drove this home. I am 6' 0" tall and up until about 85mph there was no turbulence at all. Above that speed some turbulence did start buffeting my helmet a little, but by tucking in a tiny bit I was able to get everything all quiet again.
 After we rode around this one corner for like a million times so the photographer could get some pictures, we headed out into the CA. countryside to start our 196 mile loop.
Our route took us down a few curvy roads that were a lot of things but smooth was not one of them. The first thing that really struck me was how stable the bike was leaned over in a curve. The 1125R exhibited almost no desire to move, get twitchy, or track off line even over the tar snakes and pavement irregularities that hang out in corners.
The bike also impressed me with how easily it transitioned from side to side. It actually felt more like an SV650 than a liter class sportbike. Very light and responsive. I've gotta tell ya; I like the way this Buell handles. Now you are probably saying "everybody likes the way Buells handle", but in this case you would be wrong. I have never been a fan of the way the short wheelbase XB chassis handles. I always felt that the bike had a mind of it's own and would rather be anywhere but where I had it. I know, I know, I'm weird as this is the selling point of the XBs, but there you have it.
Need to do a little trail braking in that curve? Go right ahead. This is something that one would never do (at least willingly) on the short wheelbase Buells as they tend to stand straight up if you even breathe on the front brake lever in a corner. Not so the 1125R. It was the picture of composure. Trust me, I tried this out (cause I meant to..yeah that's it) and no muss no fuss the bike stayed on line and all was right with the world.
 One thing that I have disliked about Buells for a long time are the switches. The 1125R's switches are exactly the same as the rest of the Buell line-up. Half the time I couldn't tell if I turned on the turn signals or not without looking down at the dash. Harley makes some of the nicest feeling switches so I would expect Buell to be able to produce better ones than they do. Apparently the LEGO factory was low bidder on the switches back in the early 90's. Please Mr. Buell, fix the switch and switch-housing problem.
After a very good lunch at a restaurant in Big Sur that overlooked the coastline (Northern California is beautiful!) I ended up riding all by my little lonesome, which gave me a chance to really concentrate on how the 1125R interacts with the rider. I don't ride a sportbike everyday, mainly because of a car accident that makes the riding position untenable after a short amount of time. The 1125R though wasn't bad at all. Buell moved the pegs down some from the XB peg position for a better seat-to-peg relationship. This would have cut down on cornering clearance so they also moved them in a little as well to provide a 50-degree lean angle before hard parts start touching down. I thought at first that they might have moved them in too far, but after a few miles of riding they didn't bother me at all.
 The seat-to-handlebar relationship is also much better than on the Firebolts and Buell calls it an "athletic" riding position. The seat is comfortable, yes my butt hurt after 150 miles but this is probably due more to my own tolerance than the bikes fault. I asked other riders what they thought of the seat and they all said it was comfortable, so we'll go with that.
After 196 miles neither my back nor my neck hurt at all (well anymore than usual) which I found to be quite possibly the biggest selling point for this bike. You can have the fastest, prettiest, best handling bike in the world but if it is uncomfortable you won't want to ride it very much. This is a bike that I could live with as an only bike (my wife might be unhappy about that though).
Buell took great pains in telling us that these were basically proof of concept (pre-production) bikes and did have some flaws that would be worked out before production. One of those flaws raised it's ugly head early on for me. The fuel injection system was acting up on the bike I picked out of the line-up first (I really know how to pick them). The bike was stalling at idle and then having problems restarting. Luckily, this happened during the aforementioned photo time so I rode back up to the pit area and picked out another bike.
The fuel injection problem was mostly centered around a burbling hesitation when the motor was under 4000 rpm. It was not horrible but it was noticeable. One of the BRP/Rotax guys was getting live updates on a test that Buell was running back in Milwaukee while we were at the track on Tuesday. He had one bike that he was constantly downloading new and different F.I. map settings that he was getting from the test in Milwaukee. This kind of dedication and attention to getting it right gives me hope that they will get it fixed before production.
My second bike was much better in 2 distinct areas; It stayed running and the rear brake didn't sound like a foghorn when you applied it. Half the bikes there, it seemed, had a noisy rear brake. The second bike I picked out didn't have this issue (the first one did) so I can't comment on whether or not it went away after being used for awhile. As an interesting little aside here; the bike I ended up riding all day had some of the best rear brakes I have ever felt. Powerful, progressive, and effective, which is not the Buell norm. Oddly enough, talking with everyone else, I was apparently the only one to experience this as they all said the rear brakes felt like typical Buell rear brakes; two pieces of wood squeezing the rotor.
How a company that makes rear brakes with no feel can make some of the nicest front brakes in the industry is beyond me but Buell manages to pull it off. The ZTL2 front brake felt great on the street, offering up superb stopping power with plenty of feedback to the lever. This is 2 finger stopping at its best. If you think that a sportbike needs two front rotors and calipers to stop; riding this bike with Buell's radical braking system will change your mind in an instant.
Day 1 is over and day 2 is just a few hours away. See you on the next page.
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