Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

iftEEI The heort ond soul o{ the Buell i5 its l339cc, oir-cooled V-twin powerplont. BuellXB-RR The Buell uses lwo 52mm throttle bodies wirfr o single fuel iniector pcr cylinder. The swingorm .ontoins on oil tonk thdt holds three liters of oil. gear between turns, as in to save two gear shifts in the turn two/three esses at Blackhawk, before braking hard fqr the long right turn-four sweeper coming next. The wide-open powershifter fitted to both bikes worked okay. though the shift action on Crevier's bike was smoother because of the shorter cutouts selected from the ECU, according to Anderson, and the change from bottom gear to second needs a lirm push to get it through neutral. The lack ofa sixth ratio means you must be ready to use lirst gear more than you might otherwise, so this is a welcome fea- ture. But the shifter light built into the ana- log tach (sourced from the XBI2R Firebolt, which is really the fuel light rewired to suit) is so insignificant and hard to spot - especially when you're sitti.g so Iar forward on the bike - that several times I found m),self hitting the limiter because the light had been flashinS for quite a while and I hadn't nodced ir. Aparr from being rather low-rent for a 3o-grand racer . it'll be a mark of how serious any XB-RR cus- tomer is as to whether or not it's replaced with a MoTeC or other equally high-end info center, perhaps incorporating a telemetry facility to aid suspension setup - the tach is probably surplus to require- ments here. I never thought I'd say this, havinS complained about such gtzmos in the pasr, but what the Buell really needs is the same setup as on the Ten Kate Honda CBR600RR that's won the World Supersport title for the past four years. This does away entirely with any kind of tach, and replaces it with a series of lights in different colors that illuminate on the dash. leading up to a large, bright red iun- ior searchlight that says shift up nowl I think the Buell would be easier to ride with such a device : You'd find it easier to stay focused on keeping the bike rewing where it ouSht to be in order to maximize performance. But get the Buell rewing in that 2200- rpm comfort zone. or the 400-rpm over- rev, and you'll be exhilarated by the per- formance it delivers. There's really not a lot of difference between a benchmark 500cc four-cylinder and the Crevier XB- RR I rode at Blackhawk - and the power- to-weight ratios say that's the case, with the fractionally heavier but more powerful Buell on a pa. in terms of overall perform- ance with a lighter but slightly less potent Honda- lt's just that a Honda like the Ten Kate bike we've tested is easier and more forgiving to ride. with a mile-wide power- band from 9- 15,000 rpm that leG you get the best from the multicylinder motor with its more immediate pickup. But not a lot - underlining the fact that the Formula Xtreme equivalencl rules are well thought out. The XB-RRs lightened f[,wheels means the air-cooled V-twin picks up engine speed well, with the light-action throttle very controllable and responsive. The only real problem I encountered on either bike was the inexplicable absence of a slipper clutch. Really, there's no excuse for the Buell R&D team not to have made this a must-have componeot from the very beginning - especially as the 600 fours they're racing against all have such a device, even without their smaller cylin- ders embodyin8 anything like the inertia of the Buell's two big pistons. 'To begin with, I didn't think this was a problem, but as I speeded up, lfound it really problematic stopping hard from flat out in top without chattering the rear wheel under heevy braking and reverse engine loads. To make things worse, the clutch a.rion is quite stiffand heavy, so it's pretty hard to fan the lwer to compensate for the lack of a back torque limiter. I bet l''lcwilliams had some choice words when he found out the Buell didn't have one of those. and this has to be a priority for the R&D team to deliv- er - especially with rhe fantastic braking delivered by the big 275mm penmeter rim disc, wi(h fie sensitive but ultra-effective eight-piston Nissin caliper concocted espe- cially for the XB-RR. lt's a Sood thing it works so well on its own, for adding a se(- ond disc +parently means the rteering would surely sufler. But squeezing this outstanding front brake hard on the XB-RR is the only time the compact build and quite extreme geometry of the Eluell's monocoque twin- spar chassis ever becomes an issue, as the weight transfer delivered by that front brake stands the short-wheelbase bike on its nose and encourages it to lift the back wheel and start street-sweeping into tums. Hitting second or boftom gear before the revs had dropped low enough to over- come this stafted the chatter, with the rear tire jumping the tarmac as I tried to fan the clutch and still make the apex - ahd even trying to counter this by using the 220mm back brake (sourced from the Blast street single) didn't make much difference. Get a slipper clutch on there, guys! That was the only time the sweet-han- dling Buell chassis' stability was challenSed; otherwise, it was stable around the faster tums on such a bumpy track, where the Ohlins fork especially seemed really well dialed in. Even waving the front wheel in the air, as the Buell inevitably did each lap in the bonom two gears exiting the final turn, didn't produce any shakes - just a lary swing of the clip-ons in my hands before the Ohlins steerinS damper (mounted in front of the steering head at the bottom) asserted itsell Otherwise, the XB-RR is a tasty cocktail of two often mutually exclu- sive attributes - agility and stability. It changes direction reall), well, steering predictably and very precisely from side to side in an effortless way - like in the quick second-gear llick from one side to another behind the Blackhawk paddo

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