If your heart is set on a Blast do not deviate from that aim. I genuinly doubt that anyone would ask a question on this forum without doing the research from the usual routes. I have ridden one some years ago when they first came to UK and although it was not for me I can see the real appeal of the bike.

I always wanted a Sportster and it is still in my garage, I wanted a 1125R and am currently enjoying the bike, steep learning curve, but worth it. Prior to that gutted when I sold my Merriden Bonneville to get a house deposit together. Go with your initial feelings it will be worth it.

And also, as the above post demonstrates, unless you're skint, you don't have to limit yourself to just one bike. You can never have too many bikes

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Wear the fox hat

Acronyms: SBM=Single Buoy Mooring—a large complex loading/discharging buoy made fast to the seabed by (usually) eight piled-in anchor points secured by eight four and a half-inch chains. Supertankers (VLCCs) are moored to the buoy by a twenty-one inch "Sampson" rope and plumbed in to a loading, floating hose which conveys well products from a subsea, pipeline-fed manifold via one or two subsea-hoses flanged between the underside of the buoy and the subsea manifold.
The buoy is so designed that the receiving tanker can, if necessary, orbit the buoy three hundred and sixty degrees, as dictated by the vicissitudes of wind and tide. A lovely piece of engineering geometry called "slip rings" allows the transmission of gas and or fluids to function without significant loss of pressure while the tanker moves around.
Diving support is used to maintain the buoys and to intervene when something breaks. Monsoon is the favourite season for breakages and leaks. It is manly stuff and I shall have to lie down now just thinking about it. I bet you are glad you asked.

An SBM (Single buoy Mooring) is a very large, two-part, doughnut-shaped buoy anchored to the seabed and plumbed in to a manifold delivering well-head products to a supertanker moored to the buoy. An assembly known as 'slip rings', set in the buoy, allows transmission of well-head gas and/or fluid without significant loss of pressure, while the tanker can freely rotate 360 degrees around the buoy as per wind and tide. Eight four-and-a-half-inch anchor chains secure the buoy to piled-in points on the seabed. A pipeline-end manifold (PLEM) is attached by one or two subsea hoses to flanges under the buoy—between chains one and eight. Thereafter, the product passes, via the slip rings to a rotating 'production' arm, through floating hoses to the tanker, attached by a twenty-one inch "Sampson" rope to a 'mooring' arm. The dynamic production and mooring arms sit together on top of the static section of the buoy, on three roller-bearing carriages.
Diving support is used to operate, maintain and intervene in emergencies relating to the entire top-to-bottom assembly. In India, while much of the work is not strictly diving, divers are used for all buoy operations. Clients see them as water-proof, indestructible multitaskers.
SPMS are a variant made by a different company—Single point Mooring, as opposed to SBM LTD of Monaco.

This stuff is manly, massively engineered equipment and I shall have to lie down now, exhausted by the thought of it all. I shall not take the bait for further enquiries, and respectfully suggest Wikipedia for genuine interest. I think I am having a turn...

Bonzo, thanks for your support. The Blast appeals to me because I am a Romantic and an unashamed Fantasist. I remember with great fondness and admiration Norton Dominators exploding their way around my island home in the Fifties, driven by unhelmeted tradesmen wearing RAF flying goggles on their reversed caps. On the tank was tied a battered MacVities biscuit tin, or some such, being their lunch box.
As I said, I am bored with cars. I shall get a beefy quad for cross-country equipment transport. But for the road I would be very happy with the next best thing to a Dommie. The Blast has it all. It is, as Nanny B pointed out, not perfect. But it seems easy to maintain, being a simple, single twin-valve cylinder, belt-driven—with none of the complications of shafts or weaknesses of chains. The carburettor is simple and auto-choked. I am seventy-one with hardly a shred of ego remaining. The two enemies around these parts are car-drivers who do not count bikes as vehicles with road rights, and sheep. The mere ack-ack volume of the 'Alpha' Blast is enough to shrivel more than the overtaking pretensions of most car drivers while clearing the sheep ahead for miles. I am not interested in racing on the road. My RS6 did that very well without attracting constabulary attention. The road here are miscambered and bumpy enough to negate any sophisticated handling and suspension technology so it would be wasted. I admit it, I am just rough and uncomplicated. And that is my impression of the quaint little Blast. Tell me I am missing something—I am open to suggestions.

We're all like that here. You don't buy a Buell based on a cost, reliability or performance (relative to most other modern bikes) basis. You buy it cos you've either seen or ridden one, and you've just got to have one

About 14 years ago I went in to a bike shop with a wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket. I was going to test a Ducati Monster and a Triumph Speed Triple. As I walked towards the Monster I saw this yellow thing in the shop, turned out to be a Buell M2 that looked like an S1. I'd never heard of them before, but I instantly knew I had to try it. First test ride was the M2, and I didn't want to bring it back. Had a go on the Monster, boring in comparison. Had another go on the Buell and ran out of petrol on the motorway. I was still grinning when help arrived. Never even bothered testing the Triumph, I had to have the Buell. I bought the first Buell in Qatar, an XB. It was still in a box on an industrial estate. I'd never ridden an XB before, but paid for it before I even knew what colour it was

Oh yes, and I saw a picture of the Enfield Cafe Racer on the web and bought that over the internet without seeing one in the flesh. I just had to have one. There isn't even a fekkin dealer over here

I must admit though, working in the oil business makes it easier to disregard financial and logical considerations

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Wear the fox hat

Hi

Have sent you a personal message, regarding my experience of Buell Blast and Enfield ownership, did you receive it OK???

you should certanly know about them both ............have you fixed the one i broke ...welcome to the mad house hopefull blast man ..hope you find one ..somebody on here has more than one blast

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IF IT BLEEDS WE CAN KILL IT ,THIS STUFF WILL MAKE YOU A GODDAM SEXUAL TYRANASURUS ,YOUVE BEEN PUSHING TOO MANY PENCILS DILLON .GET TO THE CHOPPER

As you are harking back to older bikes have you considered a BSA Victor Special

You can get these here or import one and the value would remain and spares are not a problem. Also useable off-road and lovely and light

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Buell S1
Buell S3 (Topless for now)
Buell XB12S
Piaggio X8 400ie
Yamaha XTZ750 Super Tenere (x2)
Suzuki GSXR750WR
BSA B441VS
FJR1300