Cycle News

RACER TEST P134 EBR 1190RS >> FIERCELY INDEPENDENT In October 2009 Harley-Davidson shut down Buell. Yet four years later, under the 'EBR – Fiercely Independent' slogan you've created a world-class Superbike out of the bare essentials of the Buell 1125R, and have taken EBR into an alliance with one of the world's largest manufacturers, targeting quite different market sectors from sportbikes. When Buell was part of Harley, you created several innovative concepts that ended up getting binned - like the Buell off-road bikes, for example. Is where you are now with EBR where you really wanted to be all along with Buell? I guess so. What's interesting, and rewarding, is that now we have the freedom to really focus on what our customers want. When you're part of Harley, a really big corporation like this needs to be integrated, and prob- Hero Honda had held the number-one slot in the world's second largest motorcycle market practically ever since it was founded in 1984, until the termination of the joint venture at Honda's behest in 2010. Hero MotoCorp is still number one in India, with a massive 46 percent market share, but unlike in the past when it was forbidden to sell its products outside India – except in Sri Lanka and Nepal – so as not to compete with Honda's own models, it's now in the process of expanding worldwide and developing dozens of new export markets, as well as the products to sell in them. And that's where EBR comes in, both as development partner and publicity vehicle – and its ably quite rightly your creative spark has to be compounded into the larger whole - so you don't have as much independence as you'd like. Okay, they presence on the World Superbike stage with prominent Hero sponsorship on its bikes, is surely only the first step in a long-term campaign aimed at global recognition for its Indian partner. In order to meet the FIM's homologation requirements for World Superbike as a first-time manufacturer in World Superbike racing EBR must build 125 bikes before its debut season commences, a further 375 by June 30, and 1000 units in total by the end of the calendar year. Hence the debut of its forthcoming 1190RX volume production model announced at the AIMExpo in Orlando, Florida, in October, with a competitive $18,995 price tag. But this is based on the higher-spec, limited-edition 1190RS wanted to do a sportbike, but they wanted to make it really different from other sportbikes, and to make it aim people towards Harley-Davidson. We did a lot of cool stuff in building bikes like that, and I think we did Harley a lot of good - but it did keep us away from the mainstream sportbike customer. So being able to not have to go talk to dad about what you're going to do is really nice, because we don't have to have all those committee meetings to design something or other. How did the 1190RS come about? Is it essentially the prototype Buell Barracuda that you were working on when Harley shut you down? No, it's not, although there were things we were working on with the 1125R that were headed in this direction. After I decided I wanted to get back in the business, I managed to negotiate Harley into letting me obtain model – with race-spec Öhlins suspension and heaps of carbon fiber and magnesium – costing $39,995 (just under AMA Pro Racing's $40K price ceiling) that Buell created in order to go AMA Superbike racing in 2012, for which he needed to construct only 100 examples for homologation. However, a further 35 bikes were later built in order to provide the basis for the first step in World Superbike homologation, and are still available for. May and his 2012 teammate Danny Eslick – a former AMA SportBike Champion in 2009 aboard a Buell 1125R – each raced the 1190RS to rostrum finishes, taking EBR to third place in the manufacturers' championship (with May fifth in the riders'

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