Snarking About on the Tractory Beast

A Buell is what you’d get if John Deere made sporty motorcycles: Angular lines, petite but big-boned, svelte like the business-end of a .44 magnum, all swinging fists full of chunky power pulses. That said, the XB-12 Firebolt that stands before me is hardly representative of a stock Buell. It's even more insane than that.

Thomas Pfeffer of village Achberg owns this bumblebee, and he kindly – or perhaps wickedly – offered to let me take it out for an hour-long spin through the quiet countryside. “Just ride it like any normal motorcycle,” he says, failing to reassure my wary look as I do my walk-around preflight inspection.

Thomas is a mechanic and a machinist who makes a lot of aftermarket parts for bikes, particularly Buells, and I think he means to say that his bike is like any normal motorcycle that’s had nearly every internal part reworked, upgrades like a Ducati fork, steel-braided brake lines, lighter wheels, exhaust and crank, and several dozen more tweaks that I can’t recall now. The brain works to suppress fear, and the more he lists all the scary-sounding performance enhancements, the more I stop listening. La la la la la, I can’t hear you, where’s the key go in? It does go slow, too, doesn’t it?

Straddling it in the parking lot, it doesn’t feel a lot different than any Jap four. It’s narrow-waisted with a small, flat, tallish saddle, but with an easier reach to the bars than many a racetrack replica. Pushing it around in a three-point turn I feel the stiffness of the steering damper and a wide turning radius that belies its short wheelbase.

A touch of the starter throws the first hand grenades into the pillbox, marking the beginning of massive arm-and-seat-shaking vibrations and the end of civilization as we know it. I look around for zombies. Trying to appear composed, I slip the medium-heavy clutch and start rolling, moving across the parking lot toward the winding country road that passes in front of Pfeffer’s shop. I touch the front brake lever with one finger to slow before I join the road and, oops, nearly perform a stoppie. Oh. These brakes mean business. Note to self – be careful.

Winding on the power, The throttle itself responds smoothly, even as the power comes bursting out of the cylinders in exploding cans of black powder percussion. My arms feel like I’m trying to restrain a runaway jackhammer. This is clearly a man’s bike, vulgar and uncivilized, not for the faint of heart. Nothing at all like the refinement I’m used to from, as Thomas calls it, my Bee-Emm-Trouble-You.

Which is kind of odd given the fact that Eric Buell went to great engineering lengths to create a sophisticated – on paper, at least – machine with mass centralization and low-unsprung weight by means of fuel carried in the frame, oil in the swingarm, a perimeter-mounted front disc brake, and a maintenance-free belt final-drive. The motor in Buells, however, remains basically a 1200 H-D Sportster air-cooled 45º V-twin. But then, like I said earlier, this is hardly any old Buell.

I notice my adrenaline is considerably higher than normally it would be at this point in a test ride. I put it partly down to the P-47 roar of the airbox, the strong vibrations surging through every bit of gut and gristle, and the fact that even more than usual, I really don’t want to crash this man’s bike. I like Thomas; his son and my daughter are in the same class at school, and he and I are obviously becoming friends, as we connect on all things motorcycle, especially these big torquey air-cooled machines we both love.

Hanging on tighter than I need to, I’m quick to upshift in order to keep the revs down and a sense of control about me. The gearbox is creamy smooth, snick, snick, snick – or maybe it just feels creamy in contrast to my clunky GS, but in any case it seems to be the most refined part of the experience so far.

I flick through the five gears easily and get a small surprise as I take a glance at the clocks and see that I’m already on the high side of 150 km/h, as the sound and the fury of the motor has stayed relatively constant while only the wind noise has really increased. My adrenaline starts to subside somewhat as I realize I’m not going to lose control – or my fillings – by going this fast. The vibration level is the same at top speed as at idle. Maybe less.

  

Steering inputs are heavy but the bike flows easily through the sweepers with a small push on the bar either direction, and soon I’m acclimated to steering mostly with small movements of my knees and shoulders, getting more lean angle round the bends than I’ve ever done on my GS. Suspension is taut without being stiff, and the chassis soaks up small bumps with ease, even in the corners, without upsetting the line. Crossing the train tracks a bit faster than I should have nearly sends me airborne and I learn to take the big bumps a bit slower.

I’m generally not a fan of loud bikes, preferring to be seen than heard. I reckon most rural dwellers aren’t impressed by the many loud machines that pass by on any Sunday, and I figure I can get away with going a bit faster than the posted limit, especially through the dorfs, by doing so quietly - one reason I’ve never outfitted the 1150 with an aftermarket exhaust in search of a more mellifluous note. 

But I have to admit – grudgingly, perhaps – that this howling and growling H-D powerplant makes me feel 18 again, back when being the guy with the biggest wheels on the back of his car was really and truly important. Try as I might to behave myself in a mature and reasonable fashion, when passing the office where my friends Alex and Elli both work right there behind the ground floor windows, I can’t help myself – I come nearly to a stop in the middle of the road and rev the hell out of the motor, rattling glass up and down the business park, my left hand raised in heavy metal devil’s horns. I’m cracking up in my helmet, though you can’t see it through my smoked visor. I ride away laughing myself silly about bombers at twelve o’clock high. Elli later tells me she had no idea it was me, that her only thought was, ‘Somebody needs to grow up.’ Well, yeah, I knew that already. But until I do, this bike is becoming the devil on my own shoulder, taunting me into naughtiness.

As the hour I’ve allocated to the ride slips by faster than I expect, I find myself enjoying the ride more and more and more. The adrenaline overdose at the start of the ride has faded nicely into the drip-drip-drip of continuously exciting riding, and by the time I roll into Pfeffer’s driveway, I won’t say that it’s all become a normal riding experience, but at least it’s not so foreign as when I rolled out. I’ve followed Thomas on a few rides, and he’s bloody fast. He does track days a few times every year on this beast, and now that I’ve taken my turn on the paint shaker, all the more respect to the man for the elegant lines and smoothness he exhibits when viewed from the rear. 

Here's Thomas on the track:

One of Thomas’s mates is selling a low-mileage XB-12 Ulysses – the adventure touring version of the Firebolt – for less money than he should, and I’m mulling over the idea of adding a Beast to my garage for a year. But I’m pretty sure I’ve been too spoiled by the polished and sophisticated experience of my last two Bee-Emm-Trouble-Yous to give up the plush Bavarian for a coarse Wisconsinite. In any case, a fun ride. Thanks, Thomas!