2008 Buell XB12SCG Lightning Consumer Rating

I'm a 52 year old street bike rider with many years of experience starting with a tricked out RD 350 Yamaha's back in the day and leaving off with a modified 1985 VMax about 5 years ago. I wanted to get back into riding but I like unusual stuff. Anyone can go out and buy a rev happy 600 for scooting around town, something I considered, or a 160hp open bike but I've kinda outgrown the traffic ticket / road rash side of my life. I would have never considered a Harley Davidson sport bike in a million years until I started looking hard at this bike. The final straw was a 50,000 kilometer test done in Germany where they thrashed the bike, track days, everything, and tore it down afterwards and it was vitually perfect. This is a 1200cc motorcycle but make no mistake, it's only a really cool 400lb $9500 600 with over 100hp and twice the torque of any 600 super sport. It's a blast but don't compare it to an open class Japanese bike, it won't hold up. It's got trick, weird, cool design ideas all over it and can really mess with the leather boys and their little rev happy lay over bikes.

I'm an 55-year old rider with 40-years of riding experience. I have two street bikes and drive daily. The Buell is LAUGH-OUT-LOUD fun. Pure and simple. I've got an orange '08 and boy does it draw a lot of attention. The bike is a work of art. According to reports it may not be the fastest street bike out there but you'd never know it riding on the street. All that brute torque being available at virtually any rpm and pushing around less than 400 pounds, makes it the perfect street fighter.