On First Look, The New Buell SuperTouring 1190 Fails to Impress

The new Buell SuperTouring 1190 motorcycle debuted this past weekend at the Daytona Bike Week, but you would never know it from the American brand. Save for one video on Instagram, the machine is virtually non-existent from Buell’s marketing channels.

The lack of a coordinated product launch live at an event and also virtually online can perhaps be forgiven from a small company with limited resources, but that same forgiveness shouldn’t apply to the motorcycle itself.

“A lack of resources” is perhaps the best way to describe the new Buell SuperTouring 1190, as the bike shown in Daytona is generously a bit rough around the edges, and not what you would expect from a serious player in the motorcycle industry.

Even before our first glimpse of the Buell SuperTouring 1190, the new motorcycles was always going to be in its ethos a Buell 1190SX with bags and a windscreen – that much was clear from the information and renders that Buell was sharing ahead of the launch.

No one expected that to be quite so literally to be the case, however.

This new model appears exactly to be a Buell 1190SX, with an extra bracket on its subframe for the two panniers, and a rudimentary front cowling that holds two round headlights, an LED light bar, and a windscreen.

The rest of the SuperTouring 1190 looks exactly the same as the 1190SX, which makes one wonder where the extra $4,000 on the $21,995 price tag is coming from.

A simple set of touring bits added to the naked motorcycle model isn’t anything new in the motorcycle industry, with Aprilia doing exactly the same thing with its base model Tuono V4 1100 sport bike to make it more touring friendly.

KTM takes the idea a little bit further with its Super Duke GT model, which gets a little bit more fairing and integrated bags than the KTM 1290 Super Duke R, but at least all of these options look like professional efforts.

Buell’s SuperTouring 1190 looks to our eye like something we would expect from a customer’s garage – despite the assertion that the look is penned by noted designer Joey Ruiter – and judging from the comments left on Buell’s Instagram channel, we are not alone in that opinion.

Aside from any sort of aesthetic design capability, Buell also seems to have forgotten about the Ninja H2 SX when touting its “the fastest production touring bike on the market” claim, as the 197hp Japanese bike surely seems to have the Buell’s measure.

While the marketing campaign states boldly that “Buell is Back” – one has to wonder if the path forward is going to materialize into any sort of arrival for this storied American brand. This weekend’s efforts certainly create new doubts.