Rick Barrett

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

EBR Motorcycles of East Troy is introducing a new bike, Black Lightning, that has a racing pedigree but is meant for high-performance city street riding.



The bike, available in the spring, is scheduled to be unveiled Friday at the Progressive International Motorcycle Show in Long Beach, Calif.

With a suggested retail price of $13,995, the Black Lightning will have the same 185-horsepower motor as the Buell 1190RX and 1190SX motorcycles, but the bike is geared lower for an emphasis on acceleration over top-end speed.

The Black Lightning has a lower seat height, lower foot pegs and higher handlebars than the other two Buells, making it more suitable for city riding and sport touring.

That’s different for EBR Motorcycles, which until recently was named EBR Racing for its ties to superbike track racing.

“We want to get the message across that we are not just a race company,” said Erik Buell, founder of the company that’s a sequel to Buell Motorcycle Co., which Harley-Davidson Inc. owned for more than a decade before Harley dropped the brand in 2009.

The Black Lightning has a more upright riding position, and there’s even an optional “comfort seat.”

“What we did with the Black Lightning was to make it a little more urban friendly overall … there’s just a lot of things to make it more of an all-around bike but still have a 185-horsepower motor,” Buell said.

Now under new ownership, EBR Motorcycles has ramped up production slowly — building a few bikes at a time in East Troy.

“We want to make sure that demand stays ahead of production,” Buell said.

For decades, Erik Buell has been known for product innovation and a competitive spirit that has resulted in racetrack victories against some of the world's largest motorcycle manufacturers.

In the 1970s, as a rider, he recorded the fastest qualifying time for a rookie in the history of the Daytona 200. It was significant for a guy who traveled from race to race in a van with two motorcycles in the back, sleeping between the bikes while an occasional hitchhiker shared the driving on his long-distance trips.

In its six-year lifetime, Erik Buell Racing hand-built $40,000 motorcycles for racing enthusiasts, developed a mass-production version of those bikes that sold for about $18,000 each and cultivated dealerships in the United States and Europe.

Currently, EBR Motorcycles is focused on its three models, the 1190RX, 1190SX and the Black Lightning. However, Buell says he’s working on some concept bikes that will be exhibited at motorcycle shows to get rider feedback.

An engineer by profession, he’s been known to carry drawings of futuristic motorcycles on his cellphone.

“We are working on some things that nobody’s thought of before … but we won’t make a product launch until we are sure it’s what people want,” Buell said.