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 Buellophobia - noun: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear and dread of Buell motorcycles by a large portion of motorcycle riders. Example: " Yeah, but no matter how you slice it, you'll still only be riding a Buell. I'll take my Yamaha any day of the week no matter how ol' Erik and his boys have improved things."
Both Buell and Harley Davidson are determined to see Buellophobia become a thing of the past. Buell wants to see it go for the obvious reason that they want to be a serious contender in the sportbike market, and Harley Davidson wants to see it go because they want to sell more Buells. No matter how you look at it, Buell needed a bike that would get the attention of both the motorcycling community and moto-journalists, while (whether they admit it or not) also distancing themselves a tad bit more from the Sportster motor stigma.
Enter the 1125R and the press introduction for the bike that was held on the street around beautiful Monterey, CA. and at the intimidating but hugely entertaining Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. What follows is the story of how Buell, striving to build a better mousetrap so to speak, has hit, if not quite a grand slam, a definite home-run with the new 1125R.
Day 1
I wake up bright and early and head to breakfast. We were told that Erik Buell was supposed to be there that morning but some airline (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) stranded him in Las Vegas. Instead of whipping them up a new and more efficient way to move people around the country (involving a lower center of gravity and less unsprung weight), he jumped in a rental car and started driving straight to Monterey, CA. I think he arrived around mid-day as he did make it to dinner that evening even though he looked really tired.
 After breakfast we moved into the next room where there were two 1125R's; one whole one and one with little cut-outs in strategic places. Also in this room were about 5 very excited Buell reps, 3 equally excited BRP/Rotax reps, and 1 Pirelli rep, that while not quite as visibly excited, did grin once in a while. Turns out that he was just the subdued type and he actually was very excited.
First lets tackle the name of the motor. It turns out that Erik Buell is a big fan of mythology, specifically Greek Mythology. Helicon is the name of the mountain where the Hippocrene spring, the source of poetic inspiration, flowed. If you can't figure out the ties between the Hippocrene spring and the new Helicon motor, nothing I can say will help you.
Buell approached Harley Davidson about helping to build a liquid cooled no holds barred liter class motor, but Harley had too many irons in the fire and instead gave Buell the go ahead to outsource the design. Where does one go when one needs a V-twin sportbike motor designed from the ground up? Why, you talk to BRP/Rotax of course. The Austrian company has probably built a wider range of motors for various types of travel than any other company. Not sure if their motors are reliable? Ask an Aprilia owner. Better yet, ask the tens of thousands of pilots that trust their lives to Rotax when they go flying.
 BRP/Rotax worked with Buell to build the 1125R motor, not to the specifications of a racing organization, but to the specifications of what a street rider needed in the real world. To that end (and staying true to Buell's Trilogy of Tech philosophy) the motor was built as a compact 72-degree DOHC V-twin. This motor puts out (according to Buell) 146hp @ (10,500rpm in their press release) (9800rpm in their spec chart) and 82ft/lbs of torque at 8000rpm in the spec chart. The aluminum frame is being built here in the USA (the XB frames were built originally in Italy) and it holds 5.6 gallons of fuel.
Buell stuck with using a belt built by Goodyear as it was lighter and less messy than a chain and has no drive-train lash at all.
The swingarm on the 1125R does not hold the oil as it does on the XB series. Buell was able to design a dry sump oiling system with integral oil storage which eliminates the need for long external oil lines.
The front brake system is called ZTL2 which basically means that this is the second iteration of Buell's ZTL (Zero Torsional Load) braking system. It does come with an 8 piston caliper squeezing a 375mm rotor. The rear brake is a 2 piston caliper gripping a 240mm rotor. The interesting thing about the rear set-up is the caliper is mounted directly to the swingarm thereby weighing 1.5 pounds less than a typical rear brake design.
One of the coolest things on the bike is the HVA (Hydraulic Vacuum Assist) slipper action clutch. Basically what this does is this; it uses hydraulics to activate the clutch, and vacuum to not only reduce the clutch effort but act as a slipper clutch as well. Suffice it to say, it works really, really well.
Last bit of tech; the transmission. Buell has built a 6 speed transmission to go on this bike. Their goal was to build a transmission that would have a "snick-snick" feel (I swear to God that those were the exact words used at the tech briefing). I can attest to the "snickability" (my word) of this transmission. The only time I used the clutch was for down-shifting and at a stop. Clutchless upshifts are seamless and smooth at almost any rpm. The best part is that every bike I rode both on the street and on the track shifted exactly the same; smooth as butter.
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