I mentioned this in a recent post about a XB12 for sale but after 20+ years of riding I have finally added an American motorcycle to my collection: I got myself a Buell XB12Ss Lightning!
What’s the “Ss”, you say? More on that in Part 2…
Over the years I’ve mentioned Howard a few times here on Bike-urious, including a photo of his majestic beard and one of his majestic Buells:
Howard’s selling a bunch of bikes through Iconic Motorbikes and the proceeds are going to several charities that he supports:
– Great American Prairie in Montana. Restoring the ecological balance to a prairie reserve including animals, plants and other wildlife. It is referred to as re-wilding. The project aims to create the largest nature reserve in the United States including bison restoration.
– Managalas Plateau, Papua New Guinea. Creating economic value to the communities on the plateau for ecosystem services, improved food crops for the household gardens, understanding with camera traps the abundance of all forms of wildlife and expanding markets for the agriculture and agroforestry products produced. One of the most biodiverse locations on earth.
– African Orphan Crops Consortium, Pan-African. Working to improve 101 food crops which are the nutritional backbone of the African diet. Increasing the nutrition values, increasing yields, developing pest and disease resistance, breeding the crops for water and nutrient use efficiency, and understanding and developing the crops for climate resilience through traditional plant science. Have trained nearly 200 mid-career plant scientists to deliver the vision.
– Land Based Learning, Northern California. High school students training to be the next generation of farmers in California with extensive hands-on experiences.
– Raptor Rescue operations in Great Plains states.
He’s got a particular fondness for Ducatis, Moto Guzzis, and Buells…and you can probably see where this is going now. I always thought the translucent plastics of the Cherry Bomb were cool and during a visit to his place two years ago I made an offhand comment about one that was in his collection. Well, he never forget about that and when it came time to send it down to Iconic to sell, he “highly encouraged” me to buy it.
The bike had been sitting for a few years so we changed the oil, flushed the hydraulic fluids, installed a new battery, cleaned the fuel injectors, replaced the fork seals, replaced the air filter, replaced the spark plugs, and replaced the drive belt. My business partner Adam filmed a video of it on the lift for social media and noted at the end of the video that it was going up on our auction site…unless I bought it first! He was not wrong.
It was very satisfying to put the 2027 sticker on the license plate after the bike had been sitting for a while.
I broke it in with a fantastic 200+ mile ride with some friends, though things started poorly thanks to a loose battery cable. Thankfully a couple of buds at the Rock Store had the right tools and a booster box to get me going again.
Here’s a sound check from Highway 33:
I started getting an intermittent check engine light during that first ride and it turned out the regulator/rectifier had gone bad. Parts for Buells can be hard to find nowadays, my shop was eventually able to track down the part from Twin Motorcycles in the Netherlands.
So far I’ve put about 400 miles on my new-to-me Lightning, and I can’t wait to keep adding to the odometer. If any of you Buell nuts have suggestions, I’m all ears! With minor fettling done, I think the only modification I want to do is put a pipe on it (nothing crazy, but a bike with styling this aggressive should have a little more oomph in the sound department).
Thanks, Howard! I promise I’ll give it a good home.
