All,
On another thread, I believe it was Allen who asked what I thought
of the Buell Blast I picked up for my wife.
Well I finally got the opportunity to ride it for a distance the
other night. I put about 20 miles on it, half highway and half 25-45 MPH
streets. For those that aren't aware, the Blast is a 500 (492 really) cc
single cylinder motorcycle built so that one could have an HD made starter
bike. It was constructed by essentially taking one half of an 883 Sportster
engine and making it into a thumper. Single cylinder bikes are known for
vibrating and this one is no exception - that having been said, you notice
it at idle but once you've gotten above about 5 MPH it smooths out, unless
of course you lug it. Its surprisingly quick - Gears 1-4 are your power
gears and 5th is an over drive. Like most bikes that are small
displacement, top gear roll on power is more like a hurry up and wait
experience. The last naked bike I rode was my 450 that I stopped riding
three seasons ago, so getting onto this was both refreshing and a reminder
of why I got bigger bikes.
The first impression is that this bike is too small for me -
mostly because of the seat. Buell sold this with two seats available, this
has the shorter one and although it might be great for the wife, I cramped
almost instantly.
Based upon the specs on Paul's site:
http://paulsnighthawkpages.blogspot.com/p/nh-450.html compared with the
Blast: http://www.bikez.com/motorcycles/buell_blast_2002.php I can see why
the Blast has higher performance - one the Blast is 32 pounds lighter (I
would also take a guess that the center of gravity is significantly lower,
based on how it feels) and according to the manual I had on the 450, has
one more HP than the 450. (33 Horsepower rated, Buell 34) I don't have the
torque specs for the 450 off the top of my head, but I suspect that it is
significantly lower than the Buell's 30 foot pounds.
Once I got rolling and was banging up through the gears I
really surprised myself - out on the highway it had no problems maintaining
highway speeds, even a bit over. 70 MPH came up pretty darn fast for the
size of the bike. The handling, as one might expect from a company that
built sport bikes, is pretty darn good and the bike felt stable at all
speeds that I ran it at. Due to the weight of the bike and the size of the
front disc brake, it stops very quickly.
Its a 500 cc bike and as a result I can't expect performance
like my 1300 cc Yamaha. That having been said - its a competent bike for a
beginner and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a decent
starter bike.
One thing that has come out of this experience thus far is
that the parts for this bike are largely cheap - being a starter bike, it
is prone to being damaged and having cheap parts is a good thing.
-Joey
--
-Joey Kelley
JoeyKelley.com - My Life Online
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