Lightning Owner Riding Survey -

[2004xb12s]

1. As often as weather allows
2. .5/100 round trip
3. 150 round trip

 

[moshaholic2]

1) how frequently do you ride each week?
every day

2) shortest ride per week/longest ride per week?

~2 miles to work each way

longest just depends on what loop i take for a "pleasure" ride 60-300 miles

3) during the "normal" riding months (if not year round), on a monthly basis, what is the distance is your "long ride"?

~300 miles. Could go further, thats just the length of the longest loop I take to end up back home.

 

[mmcn49]

Willie, I own two 07TT’s like yours. I put Madstad shields and handlebar risers on both. Fortunately I live in Washington State where there are a lot of great roads once you get away from the big cities.

I live on an island in Puget and commute to Seattle via ferry. My commuter is a 72 Beemer and have a 28 mile round trip commute. Weather is such here that you can ride almost year round. Exceptions are occasional black ice and snow.

My work place is on a 4-day schedule. Year round I try to take one of the Buell’s for a ride over the 3-day weekend. My longest 1-day ride which I completed just a couple weeks ago was 466 miles. During the nicer weather my “Fun” day rides are usually between 250 to 400 miles. During the colder weather that number drops to around 50 or 60.

A good friend of mine owns a Honda shop in Pt. Townsend, about 30 miles from home. It’s an old time shop typical of the run down dealerships of the 70’s. He gave up selling new bikes when Honda started leaning on him to make the place more up-scale 15 or so years ago. He sells used bikes, does repairs and sells power equipment. On Saturdays a bunch of riders from all over drop in for free coffee and cookies.

Most of my riding for the past few years has been solo. I have gotten together with a friend who has an older Triumph and we’ve gotten into the twisty’s at Thauya.

Anyone in the Puget Sound area wanting to get together to ride can contact me at: [email protected].

 

[Squattybodyjr]

I ride year round, daily, to and from work most but twice a year my father and I do a 3 to 4 day ride usually about 1500 to 2000 miles.

 

[ChuckieE]

1. I ride every day (if not raining)
2. 15/100 miles
3. 100 miles (dont like to go out on long rides if alone)

 

[unionthug]

1) how frequently do you ride each week?

Not enough, I may average an hour or three hours depending on my schedule

2) shortest ride per week/longest ride per week?

Short weekly ride 1/2 and hour. Long weekly ride three hours

3) during the "normal" riding months (if not year round), on a monthly basis, what is the distance is your "long ride"?

We ride 9-11 months a year here in Northern California. I prefer to not ride in the rain. Because I cannot get out as much as I like I find myself making time to ride for 3-4 days a few times a year in addition to regular rides.

We typically cover 800-1000 miles a day on these rides.

 

[Mike Van V]

1) how frequently do you ride each week?
Daily during the week, occasionally on weekends.

2) shortest ride per week/longest ride per week?
85 miles a day...to and from work.

3) during the "normal" riding months (if not year round), on a monthly basis, what is the distance is your "long ride"?
Depends. No real planned monthly treks anywhere.

Pretty much a year-round thing in So. Cal. Have rain gear for the wet days.

Also..currently have three bikes, with the 12S being the current daily driver, while the 1125CR waits for me to put a new cam in it....!

Mike

 

[Willie P]

Wow, guys - I am really impressed with these responses.

Now, the "long story" explanation for my initial questions;

I will have owned my bike for exactly two years as of 10/31/11. I presently have 5700 miles on the ODO (bought the bike as a new leftover as part of the going out of business sale, 0 miles). I would imagine by 10/31 I will have about 6200 miles on it.

I just finished a 337 mile ride into Ohio and West Virgina last weekend and was feeling proud of the ride, but reflected that when you break-down my "average" ride - it works out that I only actually ride the bike about 12-15 times per year.

I would say my average ride is in the mid-high 150-175 miles). I probably only ride 2-3 times per month from mid April to mid November. Here in Pittsburgh, you might have snow all the way through late March or even April (I do know there are guys that ride their Buells in snow - I've seen the videos!).

As well, I don't ride on Memorial Day weekend, 4th of July Weekend nor Labor Day weekend. I never ride after dark. I never even bother starting the bike up if I am not heading out for at least 100 miles. All of those self imposed rules are probably what drive my riding frequency down a bit. Here in Western PA - I watch the news every day there is at least 2-3 lethal single bike crashes every week in the summer months. Funny, almost all of them occur after 12am!

Also, affecting my riding is that I am the president of a start up company and work about 60 hours week, have three kids under 6 yrs old, try to go running 15 miles per week, try to go bicycling 50-100 miles per week and have a completely tore-down '62 Triumph sports car in the garage I am trying to restore/reassemble. I a probably spread too thin!

However, another reason for my post/questions; I was starting to sense that a lot of the Buell community were just basically "bar hopper" riders that went to bike nights and didn't really "get out" and explore and carve twisties the way these bikes were meant to.

Like the forum or not, the BadWeather guys seem to be pretty adventurous in the riding and by the posts here - seem to be some folks that really use their Buells as "tools" on a daily basis as well as long distance enjoyment.

I am probably more amazed and proud to see how many people here use their Buells as commuters. I might start doing that myself soon.

thanks again for all the feedback. willie

 

[fakameanrepresent]

1) how frequently do you ride each week? 2-3 times.

2) shortest ride per week/longest ride per week? shortest=2 miles, longest=18 miles

3) during the "normal" riding months (if not year round), on a monthly basis, what is the distance is your "long ride"? 18 miles.

 

[Alfatango1]

I ride almost everyday, used to ride 18 miles each way to work and back, now only 1 mile. I also leave my Buell at work and drive the bikes on the sales floor. CBR1000RR today.

Weekend rides vary from about 40 to 200 miles

Bike nights, a few times a week

Going down to Qualcomm Stadium tonight for the drag races. Don't know what I will bring or if I'll run. Don't want to owe my boss a set of tires.

 

[Tad Ghostal]

Hey Willie, a fellow startup guy here.

I bought my bike to get around the bay area. Given the same sort of schedule you have (60 hour weeks, and the 6 mile run most days, two 25-30 mile rides each week), wasting time driving isn't really an option, and with lane splitting, you can cut time on the road by two thirds being on a bike. So for the first 4 months, it was almost entirely short rides of 3 or 4 miles each day with a few 15 mile rides a week.

Once that project ended, I came back home to Seattle, and rode the long way home via Sequoia Nat'l park, gold country, across Carson pass into Nevada, etc, etc. 5 days, 2200 miles.

Since returning, it gets ridden any time I don't need extra carrying capacity. Cargo is about the only limiting factor, but presentability is the other, albeit less frequent reason not to ride. It's hard to keep a nice suit and tie looking good on a lightning after 20 miles of riding in freeway traffic in the rain.

Not a single bike night, no bar hopping at all, but plenty of 400-500 mile day trips through the North Cascades, out on the Peninsula, or through the Okanagans.

Besides the fact that it is just a lot of fun to ride, I find riding the Buell to be really rewarding and I imagine it is so for anybody who enjoys and actively pursues skills acquisition and mastery, and also indulges regularly in spontaneous play. One thing I've grown to love and appreciate about the lightning is that wherever I happen to be on any given learning curve, the bike always has the ability to offer more room to grow. From my experience with bikes, that's a really unique characteristic. In the past, I've found mostly extremes--extremely safe, reliable, boring bikes, and on the other end, those that are high performance but with a very narrow "fun" envelope.

 

[kelly]

my lightning is my only means of transportation and i put at least 100 miles round trip of highway and backroads 6-7 days a week year round rain or shine(riding when its ice on the road can suck). my bike is bone stock and is perfect for me. change the oil once a month, lube your levers and cables once a week and keep the air in the tires your good to go.
i never see any other buells on the road and stopped lookng to be honest. i see tons of gsxr's, triple speeds, ninjas, monsters, and soft tails. lol i give them "the wave" as i pass them.

 

[BikerTrash]

Willie, no bar hopper here, I also never drink and ride, not even 1. It also makes me laugh when I am out on a ride on a beautiful day and see only a few on the road, yet when I pass a bar the parking lot is full of bikes.
Speaking of commuting, I had a job 50 miles from home, and one summer/fall I commuted until there was snow on the ground, and racked up over 10,000 miles on a CityX.