Saw that - good laugh.

 

^Whats so funny about it?

 

The Buell won.

 

I might seriously consider a Buell some day if they ever discover liquid-cooled motors.

 

Liquid cooled motors huh? Why is that? Are they more relliable than air/oil cooled motors? There are tons of GS/Bandit owners out there that would argue the reliabilty issue with you. The sportster motor in the Buell is inadequate in that particular application but there are plenty of reliable, air/oil cooled motors out there. Personally, I would like to see something like the Yamaha MT01(Roadstar Warrior) powerplant in a XB frame. That would rock and be ultra reliable. I owned a '97 S1 Lightning and the engine itself proved to be very reliable but the transmission was the weak link and I decided to sell her before I replaced the tranny for the 3rd time. Buells are cool in a weird way but they need a better engine for sure.

 

As the article said for the longest time 600's have always handled better, not only because of their size and weight but because of the smoother throttle. Input to the rear wheel is not as abrupt. The Buells have always been know for awesome handling, I had a friend that had a firebolt and he could tear it up with the best of them. You cant awlays judge a book by its cover, especialy when it comes to those bikes. Not much for straight line stuff but in the twisties and as hooligan bikes they are pretty darn good.

 

There's no way you can get power even approaching the current crop of literbikes without liquid cooling, and I wouldn't buy a sportbike that didn't make decent power. I do trust that you can get good reliability out of a well-engineered air-cooled motor.

 

Why do you s'pose there's no more production air-cooled cars? Well, all the same reasons are also applicable to motorcycle engines. Emissions, noise, power output per unit of space and weight, and durability all favor liquid cooling. (Durability is better because the tighter temperature control allows parts to be made with closer tolerances - this more than offsets any complexity/probability of failure issues of the waterpump, thermostat, and radiator.)

I know folks who race Buells in a class that we have for them here in Canada. When you start pushing the limits, they say it is tricky to set up the suspension to get them to work right. The H-D engine and tranny force many compromises in the design. For hooligan-bikes, more relevant for street use, they are awesome.

 

There are TONS of reliable air cooled bikes on the market. In fact I would argue that air/oil cooled bikes outsell water cooled bikes, probably by a HUGE margin. All of the major makers have them in thier lineup and for some, such as Harley and BMW(probably Ducati too) they are the bread and butter of the companies. It is true that liquid cooling allows for increased performance and better reliability to go with that increase, air/oil cooled motors are very reliable as well.