New to Firestorm.
Just bought a 2001 Yellow Firestorm goes well 8k miles FSH stock. A change I would like to carry out is on the handlebars, my wrists ache after 50 miles or less!. I bought off e bay a set of Genmar lookalikes at £50+ or so. Very well made and good finish, however, I was really concerned about the overall concept.
To fit this set you remove the top circlip, slacken the clip on, slide it up and slip on the spacer. The spacer has a socket headed allen screw on the bottom which is meant to replicate the locater of the clip on, however, the head is slightly larger than the standard locater. This means you have to slacken the fork tube clamp to allow it to seat, then tighten the clamp. In my mind this now means the previous clamping force on the fork tube is less, as its now restricted due to the larger size of the bolt head.
The circlip cannot be refitted and the clip on now only covers about half its height on the fork tube and a cup fits on top all being held with the clip on clamp. The hole thats meant to locate the peg on the clip on to prevent rotation of the clip on is much larger than it needs to be, which means in theory at least you could move the clip on around the fork tube whilst riding.
All in all a bit worrying and I have removed it and reverted to stock. Has anyone any experience of this type of riser and does anyone know of a better principle or type.
Thanks
Handlebar risers
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benny hedges
- Posts: 6110
- Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:09 pm
- Location: Warrington
Re: Handlebar risers
i put a pair of vfr800 bars on mine and it raises the height to a much more upright position and also back a little too.
i found it a lot more comfy long distance, but high speed it very hard work lol apart from short aggressive bursts.
it involved trimming a bit off the fairing, from the tip to the mirror mount - see my first thread for pics lol.
looks neat tho and only took about a hour to fit.
only thing i didnt like was the securing lug that slots in the top yoke is in a different place, so you rely on the single bar clamp (8mm cap head) - caught me out once during a racy take-off versus a merc when the right bar twisted toward me and made me fill my pants.
i decided to go for the vfr bars rather than risers as having seen them on other bikes (but not personally used them myself) i didn't like the look - seems a bit of a cobbled solution, whereas the vfr bars look like they are meant to be there.
another way is the top yoke conversion / comfort kit with sports bars, but comes with a £300 price tag
cost me £47 for the vfr bars.
just refitted the standard ones for now cos i didnt want to trim my new fairing, but depending what kind of riding i do, i'll fit whatever bars suit the day
i found it a lot more comfy long distance, but high speed it very hard work lol apart from short aggressive bursts.
it involved trimming a bit off the fairing, from the tip to the mirror mount - see my first thread for pics lol.
looks neat tho and only took about a hour to fit.
only thing i didnt like was the securing lug that slots in the top yoke is in a different place, so you rely on the single bar clamp (8mm cap head) - caught me out once during a racy take-off versus a merc when the right bar twisted toward me and made me fill my pants.
i decided to go for the vfr bars rather than risers as having seen them on other bikes (but not personally used them myself) i didn't like the look - seems a bit of a cobbled solution, whereas the vfr bars look like they are meant to be there.
another way is the top yoke conversion / comfort kit with sports bars, but comes with a £300 price tag
cost me £47 for the vfr bars.
just refitted the standard ones for now cos i didnt want to trim my new fairing, but depending what kind of riding i do, i'll fit whatever bars suit the day
You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when posting something which you later rely on in quote. Anything you do say may be ripped to sh*t.
Re: Handlebar risers
I just put a set of superbike bars on mine and got rid of the clip ons all together. I went with a 55mm riser and drilled into the top triple clamp to mount them. Put the bars in the mounts and what a difference it makes. No wrist pain at all even at slow speeds. It moved the bars up about 3 inches and back a couple inches. I did need to get longer brake lines though. I didn't think I would but once I mounted the bars and tried to hook everything up the brake line was a little to tight for my liking. All in I think it cost me maybe 180 bucks cdn or 100 pounds for you fellows on the other side of the ocean. There is a good thread on superhawkforum.com that kinda shows you how to do it. Alot of guys have done it with great success. Best mod I have done yet.
Re: Handlebar risers
Sounds fine to me mate. I have the same style on mine and on mine the bolt needed filing down in order to fit into the hole in the yoke. Thing is I haven't got a vice so couldn't file it down. I kept meaning to do this but in the end haven't bothered and have done about 10k miles on it and had no probs at all. I must admit I was equally concerned when I first put mine on...