Firebolt Riding Tip

[Rogue]

Those of you who already know this, may get a kick out of it.  

I've owned my '06 Firebolt XB12R for just under a year.  This is my first Buell.  Over the course of this year I discovered that coming from all Japanese bikes, which all have a generally common handling trait, I needed to make a few adjustments to my riding to ride my Firebolt well.

One of the things I noticed about my Firebolt when riding it around town was whenever I made a tight right hand turn at slow speeds, the bike had a tendency to run wide.  And, if the intersection is particularly bumpy, the bike would exhibit a sort of bump-steer as I was turning, which created a low frequency oscillation going back through the chassis.  At first it was annoying and I thought this is just part of Buell ownership.  I dealt with it by loosening my grip on the bars.  This allowed the oscillation, or what felt like a bit of a wallow to pass through the bike and dissipate.  No biggie but it still annoyed me.  

Well, only recently did I figure out how to really deal with this trait.  It's so simple it's almost stupid of me not to have realized this from the beginning.  To eliminate the bump-steer/oscillation/wallow on tight bumpy turns, I simply kept pressure on the bars.  So if I were making a tight right hand turn, I kept pressure on the right side of the bar.  One can also describe this as continuing to countersteer as the bike negotiated the tight corner.  Not too much pressure but just enough to keep the bike stable and turning as I accelerated out of the turn.  The bumper-steer/oscillation/wallow immediately disappeared.  So did the tendency to run wide even under power.

Hope some of you find this helpful.

[Kootenanny]

Yes, the Firebolt likes a bit of pressure on the inside bar through the turn--at all speeds, in my experience.  Makes me feel like I'm contributing, and still in control

[Bueller]

Here's another tip.  I hope it’s helpful.

When I need a bit more turn, I bend the elbow on the side that I’m turning.  This pulls me down to the tank on that side, and tucks the Buell nice and tight into the turn without hanging off.  Works for me anyway, and it is not something that I consciously did on my other bikes.  It’s subtly different to leaning the bike.

My Firebolt was delivered with a lot of wallow, and ran wider than the poorest handling bikes I have ridden.  It was cured by asking the dealer to redo the pre-delivery suspension setup for my weight, and pumping the tyres to correct pressure. I had set the front preload to 4 before they reset the suspension, and they kept this instead of going back to 4.5.  It stops the front from diving under brakes, but makes it a touch easier to pop the back wheel up on a front brake grab (I prefer this to the dive).