I went looking at Buells today!

And was surprised by several things. One of them is normal...I think Erik
builds cute bikes. The little Thunderbolty things looked neat...its amazing
he can't make them weigh as little as they look, but styling wise he does
pretty good. The Ulyssess thing didn't even look all bad, cute built in
backrest, reasonable looking seat, the handlebars looked a little low for
the seating position but since I couldn't sit on one I couldn't verify it.

Buells appear to be the red headed step child of the Hardley family....the
shop I visited had exactly 5. And maybe 100 Hardleys. Which is funny because
the last time I tried to get a test ride some years ago, they had like 5
Buells and 10 Hardleys.

No one would even ask me what I wanted. I walked around the bikes, I
examined them from every angle, I began casting about with that "gee I want
to buy something" look and I couldn't get a single salesman to come over and
even ASK me something. After about 10 minutes of this I decided my time
pretending to be interested was exhausted and I left.

It took 3 minutes at their import shop for some wet behind the ears salesman
to walk up to me and ask if I needed help with anything. About right as far
as the timing went....so if the same owner can get it right in one shop why
can't his other one 100 feet away do the same?

The new big Ninja is ugly, all this pokey little lights sticking out of the
fairing where a regular, nice big light is supposed to be. The Buells were
better looking than that.

I spent alot of time looking at a used ST1100 and a new ST1300. I'm
terrified that if I rode one I would want to buy it.

48mpg on my last tank of gas. Best yet, but I'm not sure why. Less
commuting, more slow canyon riding and backroad riding on this last tank.

Visited the old rinky dink racetrack. Its mostly gone except the scoring
tower and asphalt. I was bummed.