Written by Martin Hodgson
The story of Erik Buell, motorcycle engineer and designer, has been a roller-coaster ride of enormous highs and lows. Buell is a bonafide genius, his desire to build the true American Sportsbike has led to some incredible innovations. But financial woes, Harley Davidson’s timidity and having to compete with the biggest players on the planet has made it a struggle. But imagine if he’d been joined decades ago by Prof. Sylvain Carignan, who designs high-tech Catamarans from cutting-edge composite materials. Wonder no longer as the Professor serves up his custom carbon cafe creation, a 2004 Buell XB12R called Simone.

From Quebec, Canada, Professor Carignan teaches electronics at the Trois-Rivières? College, is the director of Design Catamaran and in his downtime builds custom bikes. His work in such high-tech fields informs his approach to his hobby, ? I like to use new 3D printing technologies and machining techniques to produce my bikes,? explains Sylvain. After seeing Bott Power’s bike and their adventures at the Pikes Peak race, he started to immerse himself in all things Buell and knew one would be his next donor with a commitment to maintaining some key aspects of the brand. ?I had to keep two essential parts to respect Buell: the front brake system and the exhaust system.?
Buells at a reasonable price aren’t an easy find in Quebec and Sylvain was trying to negotiate with an owner on Facebook when Jack the then owner o...