Radical Buell-Powered Rolling Artwork by Pumpa Choppa

Story by Buck Manning, Photos by Horst Rösler

There have been quite a few articles and columns in Barnett’s Magazine over the past few years extolling the virtues of using a Buell as a donor bike for building a custom. Their way more than reasonable used prices and availability of both the steel and aluminum frame models, along with the ability to incorporate a lot of the high end stock pieces into a new custom, has led to a depletion of stock bikes that might just increase the value of remaining models as being more than just a donor bike. Maybe it’s time to get one of Erik’s finest and put it away untouched until the scarcity of stock Buells increases their appreciation and value. In the meantime, they’re still about the best game in town to use as a base to build a reasonably priced custom that with a stock motor turning out a good 85 horses at the rear wheel can do some serious ass kicking and look good doing it. And, that’s without some of the most basic tuning tweaks available. Bumping up a big twin anywhere near these levels gets very costly, quickly.

Europeans have taken to Buells not as donor bikes, but as the sport bikes they are meant to be, ridden and ridden hard on the endless ancient twisty roads scattered throughout the continent. Our feature bike’s owner, known only as either Greg or Blackcrow, was one of those hard riding Buell owners until he decided that he wanted to see his boys grow up and made up his mind to change his ride into more of a cruiser and less of a racer. Blackcrow (as I prefer to call him) connected up with Dom and Phanuel from Pumpa Choppa (seems like everybody connected to our feature bike has a single name like longtime Skippy peanut butter spokesperson Annette) who were more than happy to take on the build.

As usual, all the good pieces from the Buell would be used wherever possible, but they tossed the aluminum frame and built a low-riding drag-style rigid from scratch. A pretty radical 50-degree rake and a few inches of stretch were part of the design of the frame which tossed out the rubber mounts and included the engine as a stressed member which now rides a couple of inches lower than stock. What appears to be a conventional frame is actually a two-piece design with the beefy curved downtube and matching top tube reaching behind the engine where the rear section is grafted on. The XB9S’ inverted forks were treated to a new set of beautiful machined aluminum triple clamps by Rene (again, the one name thing) to bring the trail in line and stock wheels powdercoated black with the Buell’s powerful stock brakes utilized front and rear.

Blackcrow decided to keep the ample horsepower 2003 984cc Buell engine dead stock for reliability, and that includes the fuel-injection system that is unusual as a carb is usually stuffed on for simplicity. The normal problem of hiding the complex FI electronics was taken care of by stashing everything under the left side of the “tank.” Normally there is a large airbox under a faux tank on a Buell to provide air for the injector and Pumpa Choppa obliged this necessity with the modified classic S&S teardrop air cleaner sitting horizontally atop the engine’s vee leaving the cylinder heads exposed on the right. I really do like the asymmetrical approach they took on design for this bike, as you walk around it you never take for granted that there’s a mirror image on the other side. From the right, the bike looks like an engineering cutaway, a frame tubing silhouette and copper lines delivering their liquids while pirouetting over, under, and around the engine and the top tube, which houses part of the oil supply within. On the left, the view is quite different, much simpler without the mechanical complexity of the right side, and the layered aluminum “tank” and fender put on their own show. Dom fashioned these hand-hammered pieces, which gives the bike its name ThorTueuse, or tortoise to you non-French speaking enthusiasts. Working with a block of wood and a hammer, he had to make these pieces in many parts leading to the sculpted, layered look. It was such a visual success that the front sprocket cover for the belt drive became part of this ensemble also. Although this method of construction was a surprise to him Blackcrow really loved the look and it probably worked out well at home as his other half collects turtles and tortoises That leather vee on the side of the tank is actually a belt that secures the bottom of the tank and keeps it from flailing about. The fender stay is another daring exercise in asymmetry that offsets the mini cateye taillight to accentuate this look even further. Fuel is carried in the brass-capped aluminum container under the leather covered sprung seat by Brunissen while additional oil resides in the twin longitudinal tanks on either side of the stock muffler.

The foot controls are a mind blowing concoction of gears and chains to accomplish shifting and braking. The shifter controls twin sprockets via chain drive to change gears and the brake lever has geared linkages operating the master cylinder. Clean and super cool imagination on the part of Dom and Phanuel was involved in a totally different take of foot controls. The comfortable looking bars have a central riser attachment that houses a speedo encased in a big brass top nut. Machined brass grips give Blackcrow’s hands a gorgeous place to grasp with matching brass foot pegs along with the brass shifter and brake pedal tips. The look of raw metal permeates the whole bike and adds an aged metallic patina, which stands out against the basic black of what’s left.

Well Blackcrow, you got your custom bike, but somehow I doubt you’ll be riding it much slower as it’s still one kickass ride.