COBRA

Our first meeting of the new year and new decade will be on Thursday, January 21 @ 6pm. We’ll be meeting at the Barley’s Smokehouse & Brewpub located near downtown Columbus on Dublin Road.

Barley’s Smokehouse & Brewpub
Ale House No. 2
1130 Dublin Road
Col.OH 43215

Hope to see you all there!

“Erik Buell, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of Buell Motorcycle Company, will leave the company to establish Erik Buell Racing, an independent motorcycle race shop.” (full press release)

Woohoo!!!!

Erik Buell Racing

MORE INFORMATION: Here are the details on where we’re meeting Sunday morning (October 25).
Pilot Station/Wendy’s at 3600 Interchange Road, at the corner of I-70 and Wilson Rd.

Kickstands up at 9:00, so show up early for food/gas

IMPORTANT UPDATE: This ride is turning out to be a pretty significant event.  The BadWeb forum now has a heavy thread on the QuickBoard with riders across the country showing their support and desire to ride.  A few of those “in the know” have made contact with the factory and there is a green light for us all to show up mid-day on Monday, October 26.

If you arrived at our humble website from outside of central Ohio, please see the BadWeb thread for details and hopefully riders in your area.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

Shocked…stunned…at a loss for words.

Buell Motorcycle Company is closing their doors. For good.

Buell has a very emotional video from Erik on their website. Here are a couple of New York Times links with some additional information.

New York Times AP Article

New York Times blog report

In a last ditch effort to see the business (in it’s current state) as well as attempt to extend condolences as well as appreciation, Mike F. is riding to East Troy and has generously offered to lead a group of any and all who want to come.

The rough plan at the moment is:

• Leave Columbus the morning of Sunday, Oct. 25th
• Arrive in East Troy Sunday evening
• Stay in a hotel/motel
• Spend as much time as possible at Buell Monday morning
• Ride back Monday afternoon/evening

That means we’re looking at about 500 miles a day, two days in a row. It may be a bit uncomfortable, and a bit emotional.  But it will be well worth it to pay respect to a motorcycle company and the visionary man who built it.

It’s a very sad day for Buell owners. Buell has always been one of the most distinctive bikes on the market. With the factory doors now closing for good, these awesome machines have just become even more rare.

If you’re interested in the ride, you can email us at contact@cobrabuell.com or post into our BadWeb forum.  More details will follow.

We have a great ride being organized by Mike F. on Sunday, October 4 (rain date Sunday, October 11). Come one come all!!

The Blues, Brews and BBQ event on Sunday was a great time for all those that came out! Mike took some pics of the event and there are some comments in the forum from some that came out.

I’m bummed I missed the event myself, but from the pics it looks like we had some newer folks out. That’s great!

The ride is over, the memories are fresh, and the pictures are up.

In a word, it was…fantastic!

Our group was made up of four riders:
Bruce - Leading the pack on a XB12Ss Lightning
Masa - Next in line in his XB9R Firebolt
George - Following on his Suzuki SV650S
Kurt - Sweeping the group on his Honda Interceptor

We left mid-day on Friday, June 26 and rode about 380 miles to just south of Knoxville, TN where we stayed next to the airport in Alcoa, TN for the night. Took us about 6 1/2 hours with three gas stops and a couple, “uh…where are we?” stops. LOL

Saturday morning found us on the Dragon, a first for all four of us. We didn’t even realize we had started on it until we stopped at a curve and talked to some old timers on their hogs. We hooked up the video camera and off we went. Masa and Bruce flew down the road pretty well on the Buells, while the Honda and Suzuki were a bit more relaxed.

We hit Deals Gap about 10:30am and like everyone says, it was pretty quiet at that time in the morning. We easily parked and checked the place out, then hit the Dragon again. This time Masa took the lead with the helmet video, with Bruce following. Masa pulled ahead at the first curve and Bruce never saw him again until we stopped at an overlook!

We then finished the Dragon and continued a bit more down the road along the lake. In hindsight we should have stopped and turned earlier, as this was when Masa received the first and only “performance award” of the ride.

Our third ride through back to Deals Gap was caught up in a bit of traffic, so that ride was a lot more relaxed but still enjoyable.

We then ate lunch at Deals gap and then took off down US 28 about 2pm, headed to the Blue Ride Parkway.

The BRP was breathtakingly beautiful. The ride exceeded all our expectations, with great curves and rolling hills/mountains and stunning scenery.

We rolled into Asheville, NC for our 2nd night of rest, and then continued along the BRP the next morning. After 235 miles of the BRP and only 2 short detours along the way, we exited off at US 21 and headed to Wytheville, VA. US 21 turned out to be an awesome ride as well. We spent our 3rd and final night in Wytheville and immediately turned on to I-77 to head home the next morning.

Something about I-77 turned some key critical thinking off in both Bruce and Masa as their blood got pumping on the ride and they proceeded to burst down the mountains at 110MPH+. Top that with some incredibly strong windy conditions the entire 350 miles home and in hindsight that was pretty poor thinking. Thankfully all went well regardless of the poor decision making in speed. However, speaking for myself (Bruce) I will probably not lead a group in the near future until I can get a handle on the lead foot…er, make that lead “hand” I seemed to have contracted from this ride.

1,112 miles later and we were back home.

Can’t wait until next year’s ride! Hope more of us can make it then!

Oh, you want some pictures? Okay, here are some highlights from the ride. Enjoy!

I (Bruce / thump4fun) am planning a trip down to the Dragon in June with a couple of non-Buell friends.  We’re leaving the afternoon of Friday, June 26 and plan to ride the Dragon on Saturday.  We’re then riding the Blue Ridge Parkway for as far as we feel like, until heading back to Columbus on Monday.

We’re not making any reservations in advance for lodging, but don’t plan on making this a very expensive trip.  $50 motels for 3 nights, fast-food during the day, maybe a steak one night, and gas is about all it takes.

If anyone else would like to join a Buell(er), a Honda Interceptor, and a Honda CBR on a nice long weekend for a ride on the Dragon followed by some beautiful scenery on the Parkway, we’d be happy to have you along.  Just give me a shout and let me know.

Just be sure to have your AMA membership up to date for any breakdowns!  LOL

We’ve missed the past two Wednesday bike night meets due to weather, but rather then holding off until next month we’d like to get together to get things going with the club.  The weather looks like it will hold this coming week, but even if you show up in a cage, that’s fine.

We’re meeting on Wednesday, May 20 @ 6:30pm at Barley’s Smokehouse near downtown - the site of our very first meeting.

Be sure to come out so you can lend your voice to what we’re going to do with the club!

A good time was had by all at the  Grandview Euro Bike Night this past Tuesday evening.  We had 5, count ‘em, FIVE Buells out there!  And a wannabe you’ll see in the pics - LOL!  Which according to Mike is about 4 more Buells then any night before.  Looks like the club is making an impact on the local bike scene! 

There were, of course, a lot of BMW and Duc’s at Grandview, with the oddball Honda and even a Harley or two.  But having several Buell’s all parked together drew some attention, as well as Harry’s M2 now decked out in black and carbon.

If you didn’t make it out you missed a tour of the Spagio kitchen (which was pretty interesting) and some free food (which was very tasty).  For those that have never made it out there at all, the scene at Grandview is definitely a little more…shall we say…’refined’, then the Quaker Steak and Lube crowd.  LOL!

I’m sure we’ll be going out there some more this summer.

Mike took some great pics from the night, which you can find on the COBRA Pictures page or on Mike’s own Flickr page.

The first annual Thunder and Lightning event has came and gone this past weekend, and I’m happy to report that not only was it a great turnout all around, but COBRA showed their support well!

Even with the weather being an unknown factor on Saturday there were about 35 riders that came out…with 5 of those from COBRA! Not too shabby of a turnout I’d say! We’d love to have more members out to show our colors and support, but when 15% of the total attendees are COBRA members, that’s a pretty good start.

The morning started off a little later then planned as the organizers waited for late comers to arrive due to the weather. We then split into 5 groups, with each group going to one of 5 different 30-minute sessions. The sessions held were:

• Suspension setup
• Buell racing
• Riding tips
• Dyno
• Basic maintenance

I think the sessions had some great information for riders of all skill levels and backgrounds, so we all were able to glean some knowledge.

Mark even got his bike up on the dyno machine after talking with the techs.  I think once we cleared up a misunderstanding in the results he was pretty happy with it. 

It was then time for lunch and the trivia run.  The five of us COBRA members ended up with another 5 riders, making a decently sized group of Buells riding around the countryside.  I think we got lost twice and probably added 10-15 extra miles on our little tour.  LOL

The way back we had some pretty significant wind which made for an even more interesting ride.  The results of the trivia ride didn’t turn into any wins for COBRA, but the random drawing gave Dennis the best give away…a free pass to a track day from Fasttrax!

Congratulations Dennis!

It was a great day out, leaving Columbus at 6:30am and arriving back at Northstar about 9:30pm.  We ran into weather (rain and wind) for the first hour or so, but then it cleared up somewhat.  Total miles for the day was 330 from Northstar, plus miles to/from our homes.  I did 352 miles to/from my house and I’m probably the closest to Northstar, so I know everyone else did at least 350 miles.  Not a bad day’s ride.

We hope to see more of COBRA at future events!

Here are a few pictures from the day…