Project Pegasus – My Quest for a Buell Ulysses Adventure Motorcycle

Sturgis, S.D. August 1992

            I’ll remember a night in August 1992 for the rest of my life. It was one of those perfect nights that occasionally will pop up in your memories and trigger a longing for that feeling again.

            I was 31 and up to my neck in life. I had a new baby at home and a business that was growing too fast to keep up with.

            My cousin Dennis and I had made plans for months to go to the Mecca of motorcycles – Sturgis, South Dakota for the yearly rally.  We had met outside of Tulsa and headed up the road, our bikes packed with a week’s worth of clothes and a few incidentals.

            We got to Sturgis a week early – and got a room at the Super 8. The clerk warned us that the Harley-Davidson team would be there on Thursday, and we would be out.

            We traveled around the area, burning time and looking at the sea of bikes. There were so many motorcycles that seeing a car or truck was the exception.  All years and models – both bikes and people.  Everyone from doctors to drifters was there, with the occasional leather vest-wearing club members.  The Hells Angels were a common sight – their vests had blank patches on the back, but the outline was unmistakable. 

            Dennis and I had gone to one of the local “must-see” places, Shotgun Willie’s.  It was a big bar in Rapid City that finally shut down in 2015. Back then, it was in its heyday.  We parked our bikes among the hundred others in the lot and strolled inside.  It was wall-to-wall leather jackets with a few lighted stages. Several very acrobatic young ladies occupied these stages, unencumbered by clothing, and the atmosphere was boisterous.  We found a small table near the bar and ordered a pitcher.  Sitting there, taking in the experience, we noticed a fellow approach one of the stages where a young lady was doing her set.  We watched as he lay down on his back, full on the stage, and put a bill in his mouth.  Dennis and I looked at each other, a bit wide-eyed, and proceeded to secure our glasses and the pitcher, sure that the fellow was about to be dragged past us and launched out the front door. Instead, the young lady grinned and leaned over the prone fellow – and deftly removed the bill from his mouth with her ample bosoms.   We were relieved and dumbfounded at the same time.

            Dennis leaned over and shouted above the din, “If it wasn’t for that AIDS thing, I believe that might be worth a few bucks!”

            We sat and drank our pitcher and reveled in the craziness of it all for a bit, then stepped out to our bikes and fired them up.

            It was about a thirty-minute ride back to the hotel in Sturgis, and it was one that I’ll never forget. 

            The desert night seemed alive.  The stars were as bright as they can only get in the wide-open spaces, the Milky Way was impossibly vivid.  A few high wispy clouds were racing by a sliver of moon.  The wind alternated warm and cool – my leather jacket was perfect for it.  Heady scents from the high plains mixed with the highway smell. A hint of some flower wafting in the air and gone by the next breath.  The big Harley V-Twins pulsed along effortlessly at a leisurely pace. The bikes were in their element.  They were made for nights like this.  My hands on the grips felt the familiar tingle of the engine loping smoothly along, a living thing hungry for miles.  I had a full belly from dinner and the couple of beers, and was more relaxed than I had been in years. I felt like I was part of the machine. The windshield kept the wind out of my face, and we were riding without helmets – the wind in our hair and beards…back when we had hair and beards.  There was a thunderstorm east of I-90, and lightning lit up in the distance.  The air was electric. 

I’d never felt more alive in my life.

The Pegasus Project

            Motorcycles have always had a special place in my life. I’ve seldom been without at least one of them for very long.  I had been bike-less for several years and felt the pull begin in the Fall of 2019.  I started looking at the different types out there.

            Things had changed a lot since I had my last bike.  There was a pretty bright line between street and dirt bikes when I last rode, but that line had blurred.  The adventure bike craze was in full swing – and my cousin James was in the middle of it.  He had a shiny new BMW just like the ones Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, of “Long Way Round” had ridden 19,000 miles from London to New York, and on their subsequent adventures.  As neat as those bikes are, there was no way I was ever going to have $20,000.00 to spend on something like that. To be honest, all the electronic gewgaws and gadgets were a huge turnoff to me, too. I wanted a “pure” motorcycle – or at least as near as possible.  Anti-lock brakes?  That just seemed weird to be on a bike to me.  Having been in the middle of things in the auto parts business during the transition from carburetors to fuel injection, I was a lot more accepting of that upgrade.

            James knew I had owned the ’91 Harley Heritage Softtail, and also a ’95 Buell S-2 Thunderbolt. The Heritage Softtail was my Sturgis trip bike, and I rode it on short trips around the area. I loved the way it handled. Even though it was a pretty big bike, it was responsive and very comfortable for trips.  The Buell was basically a tube-frame sport bike with a modified Harley Sportster 1200.  It handled really well, and I liked the torquey power band of the engine. It also shook like a paint shaker and was amazingly uncomfortable after even a short ride.  It didn’t fit me well at all, and all my upper body weight seemed to be on my hands.  It looked really, really cool though – and I loved the quirkiness of it.

            In 2006, Buell introduced the Ulysses XB12X – their idea of an adventure bike.  I recall giving it a cursory glance and being underwhelmed. It looked like a rolling compromise – a bike that claimed to do it all but did neither dirt nor street well.  Too heavy for a dirt bike, too light for a street bike – and a bit goofy-looking, too.  With a big motocross style front fender and a faux headlight guard that looked unlikely to stop anything at all.  They also put on handguards that looked like off-road bark busters, until you looked at them more closely and figured out they were plastic, and just clipped onto the bar ends.  I admit I didn’t think about them much, as I had my hands full with my second year of law school and trying to not go broke.

            When James and I started talking about “the perfect bike” for me (that I could afford) he mentioned the Ulysses.  I started scouring the forums online about information on them, and the more I read the more I liked the idea.  They seem exceptionally robust – with a few problem areas that seemed common.  James knew that I was pretty handy with doing my own repairs and could likely handle most of the minor things that were bound to pop up on it. 

            Buell ultimately build 7,432 XB12X Ulysses from 2006-2010.  In 2008, Buell introduced the Touring version of the Ulysses, the XB12XT of which there were 1,911 produced.

            The T was about an inch and a half lower, had a bit smaller front forks and about 1.5” less suspension travel, no headlight guard, no high front fender, and came standard with plastic Hepco & Becker Journey luggage.

            In the Spring of 2020, I had saved up about $5,000 above my small safety net and began looking at Buells seriously.  I’d written an ad on badweatherbikers.com, a very active online forum of Buell enthusiasts, and gotten a reply.  A fellow near Baltimore had a 2010 XB12X – 96 were built that year, it was a unicorn.  The fellow was a long-time rider and had several bikes. He’d decided to let this one go to make room for something else in the stable. It had 11,111 miles on it. An acceptable mileage, as I’ve seen several examples with over 100,000 miles.  I gathered up my stash, rented a U-Haul motorcycle trailer (one of the best-kept open secrets out there – $15 a day!) and headed east.  It was about 1,400-miles round trip. I drove a pretty good chunk of it and then slept for a bit in my van in a rest stop, arriving mid-morning.  It was a beautiful drive, and I saw the Blue Ridge Mountains for the first time. Sadly, when I got there the bike was dirty, there was (still) a broken latch on one of the bags that he said he would have fixed…the manual was missing, and just a lot of other red flags.  I looked it over carefully and decided not to buy it.  The bags that were on it were the small “police” bags and the bike had not been taken care of very well – obviously by the previous owner.  I was disappointed, but I headed home with an empty trailer.

            I had been talking with a fellow in Ringgold, Georgia (just about a 3-hour drive from here) about his red 2008 XB12XT for a couple months before I did the Baltimore trip, and he actually texted me while I was on my way to look at that bike.  I described it to him and told him that I would like to get back in touch if that deal fell through.  He was understanding and said to let him know. 

            I’d found his bike on Facebook Marketplace and called him. His son had put the ad on for him. He was a Harley guy that had a big Harley that he and his wife mostly rode.  He’d sort of bought the Buell on a lark. He said they went in to get his wife a new helmet and she saw the Buell and loved it. So, he went in for a helmet and came out with a bike. It had been mostly sitting the last few years. He and his wife usually rode their Dyna Glide when they got a chance to get away. It had 2800 miles on it and had been serviced at the Harley dealer. He kept it on a battery tender inside his attached garage.  He said they just didn’t ride it anymore and decided to get rid of it. The pictures in the ad looked like a new bike.  He sent me a few more and the bike was super clean.  The only problem was that he was a little over what I considered the market price at $5,500.  I was intent of getting in at $5,000 or under.

            Then, my iMac pretty much stopped cooperating with the Internet.  Poor old thing is a mid-2010 model, so I had been using it for 10 years and dragged it all over the country. It had survived thousands of miles of moves and the only real issue I had was a screen replacement in 2016.  I have been wanting to dabble in video and had actually tried some stuff with the mid-2010, which was having none of it.  I spec’d out and ordered a new 2020 intel iMac that’s a monster and should last me a long time.  The downside is that’s where my $5,000 of bike money went.  When I was talking with my cousin James about it, I referred to it as my “iBuell.”

            By April ’21 I was recovered enough financially to start thinking about a Ulysses again.  I started looking at ads more often, and found an ’08 XB12XT in Maben, Mississippi at a car lot.  I called the fellow and got the story. He’d bought it at auction 6 or 7 years ago and kept it as his personal bike.  It had under 5,000 miles on it and had been kept in his tire/repair shop.  He was a very nice fellow and described the bike honestly and accurately.  He had it listed at $3,850 which is below retail and was a pretty good deal based on the dozens I had seen.  I grabbed another trailer and headed south to check it out. Maben is about 270 miles away, so I made a long day trip out of it.  A pleasant surprise is that the route followed the Natchez Trace Parkway for about 100 miles – it’s a great road.  Not much traffic, 50 mph speed limit, and a few bikes along with sparse vehicle traffic.

            I took my GoPro with me and when I got to the lot, the owner was in the office talking with some other folks.  I fired up the camera and took about 5 minutes of inspection video.  The old bike was pretty rough – nothing that couldn’t be brought back, but it wasn’t ever going to look new again.  When he got it, the mirrors weren’t on it.  I’d priced a set online and factory replacements were $150 a pair – bike parts are surprisingly expensive.  Especially if it’s been a while since you’ve bought any.  The exposed metal pieces had surface rust, the cases and jugs were oxidized.  None of this was “horrible” especially for a 13-year-old bike, but I kept thinking about the bike in Ringgold.  I had a great visit with the owner, and he told me more about his time owning the bike.  We reminisced about other bikes we’d had; trips we’d been on.  I told him I was a bit jealous of his set-up. He had a car lot/tire shop/repair shop there by Maben and was obviously doing well and living in a beautiful (and likely inexpensive) area to boot. I told him that I had decided against the bike, but I wasn’t disappointed at all.  I assured him that I wasn’t upset and that I believed he had described it accurately and honestly.  But the Ringgold bike was always in the back of my mind.

            I made it back home and on May 1, ‘21 I texted the fellow in Ringgold about the bike:

  “Hey – I can’t believe it was a year ago that I first talked with you about your Buell – and it’s probably one in a million chance you still have it……BUT I felt like I should touch base with you and see.        …and if you do, would you still sell it?    I drove to Maben, MS last week and looked at one – it was under 5,000 miles but had led a pretty hard life.  I finally have my finances in order (sorta), and still have myself convinced that a Uly is the way to go.”  

“I’m the guy in Hendersonville, in case you’ve deleted the texts.”

            He got back with me and still had it. He said he’d taken it off the market after we talked.  I hadn’t seen it advertised and just knew that it was gone.   He shot me the same price it was listed at, and I grabbed a U-Haul motorcycle trailer AGAIN (episode number THREE) and went to Ringgold, Georgia on May 4 and picked it up.  The trip wasn’t the easiest – I got stopped by a train across the road about two miles from his house that didn’t move for an hour and fifteen minutes…and drove in heavy rain the whole way back.  But it was MINE!  Finally!

By July 26th I’d managed to get a tag and insurance for it. I keep a battery tender hooked up and start it up occasionally. Next step is to take the motorcycle written test, driving test, and get the motorcycle endorsement on my license. I got my first motorcycle kinda late – I think I was 15 and it was a dirt bike, so that might not count. My first street bike was an ’81 Yamaha Seca 750 that I bought when I was 21…41 years ago. And yeah, I still have to take the tests. It’s not mid-November and winter is quickly moving in. I’m going to get the test knocked out and ride it on the nice days to keep it limbered up. I have some lofty plans for next summer – and hope they pan out.

UPDATE: I passed the test for my motorcycle endorsement (on the second try – LOL – I foolishly didn’t study for the first attempt.) I’ve had her out on a few longish rides – recently to Byrdstown, TN, a place that might figure strongly in my near future life. The bike has new tires and is running well. I’m reasonably confident that I can do some pretty good miles on it.

UPDATE 2: It’s March 8, 2024 and since I updated this post, I’ve had a few more adventures on the bike. I rode it to my 45th high school reunion in September, 2022, and was on the road for a little over a week visiting with friends. She did the trip from Nashville to Tulsa without a hiccup and was comfortable and FAST on the trip. In October 2023 I rode to Orange Beach, AL and stayed with family in a condo for a week, then headed to Parrish, FL where I hung out with an old high school buddy for about a week and a half…the trip home from there was “challenging.” I left fairly early and rode from Parrish to Hendersonville in one go. The weather turned off surprisingly cool and by the time I was on the road a couple hours, I had dug out all the clothes I had including my rain suit. Of course I got stuck in stop and go traffic around Birmingham…and Atlanta on the way down…that burned an hour of riding like I was on a 500 pound kiddie kick bike. Exhausting. But I finally made it back to HVL late that night, riding 680+ miles that day. I was pretty tired. But it was a great (cheap) trip all in all! The old gal gets a bit over 40 mpg, and I stop about every 150 to 200 miles to stretch a bit and fill up.

I’ve got some lofty plans for her again this Summer!