Buell set up a large drawing board in the “barn ... - Whitehorse Gear

have the option of coming back after six months. He was not comingback.) His parting was on exceptionally good terms—something thatwould prove important in the future.To develop a race bike Erik needed cash, so he sold his duplex andfound a run-down farm to rent in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. The farmwas a long way from any neighbors and had a nice garage building aswell as a barn. It was an ideal place to build and test a race bike. Hewould generate some income by stepping up his Pittsburgh PerformanceProducts business.The RW 750 really was, as the hot rodders say, “sanitary.” Lots of attentionto detail is evident in the construction of the chassis. It hadmostly straight tubes for maximum stiffness. The engine was mountedwell forward to keep weight on the front end. The front suspension wasMarzocchi with the patented Harley-Davidson electro-pneumaticanti-dive system (which Erik invented). The rear suspension was a singleWorks Performance unit. The axles were thicker than usual 1980spractice; the front was 20 mm versus the usual 17 and the rear was 25mm versus 20. The bearings were out against the fork tubes. None ofthis was common 1980s practice but resulted in a much stiffer axle. Increasingstiffness is a theme continued across the entire history of Buellmotorcycles.The bodywork not only looked good but shows the beginnings ofBuell’s interest in aerodynamics. It started with the basic shape of the1969 Harley-Davidson Cal Rayburn streamliner developed in CalThe one-car garage in Milwaukee,where Erik started to develop theRW 750, became increasinglydifficult to work in as the RW 750project grew. This farm nearMukwonago, Wisconsin, was aperfect location for the project. Thebarn itself, on the left, was used forstorage of leathers, wheels, andgeneral parts. The small building infront of the barn was the office. Itmay have started life as a milkingshed and is attached to the barn.The out-building on the right wasthe actual “factory” where theRW 750 was made and earlyRR 1000s were built.27