RF900 $23.00 handlebar riser trick

[Dr. Zorko]

I just finished a project on my RF900 that I thought I'd share. I had been thinking about a way to get the handlebars raised up a tad more. I've been running a set of 1/2" spacers under the artificial upper triple clamp for a while, but was looking for a way to move them up a bit higher. Since the bars themselves are nothing more than 7/8" o.d. steel tubes, I thought why not just pick up some tubing and bend 'em to fit or find something ready made to use. Old handlebars from the wrecker came to mind.

First thing I did was to whip up a mock up and see how everything would fit and if the controls would clear the fairing. As fate would have it, I had a piece of 7/8" PVC pipe that would do the trick. A little heat and I had a mock up to work with. After mounting all the controls up it looked as if it would work out just fine.



So it was off to local bike shop and found a set of drag bars that had bends very close to what I was after. New, sadly, but cheap! (EMGO 24 1/2" with about a 2.5" pullback, chrome, Part No.23-92402, $23.00 CAN from MOTOVAN, Catalog page 416 #87-402 Chrome, #87-412 Black).
http://www.motovan.com/cat/2006moto_en/html/2006moto_en.html 



Out with the hack saw and bench sander and I had two nice chrome handlebars to install. The fussy bit was filling out two bolt slots to match the ones on the original bars. Next, I assembled the whole thing and set up the controls.



I left the bars a bit long at first to test ride and make sure I had some room to adjust this and that. Off for a test ride!



My first impression was that I was sitting up way too high and that the wrist angle was a bit off. OK, I can always remove the old spacers and tilt the bars down. So I did, and the next ride proved to be spot on. Just what I was after. The bars ended up being about 1.25" higher with about 1.25 pull back from the stock set up.

[Isotech]

Or you can do what the previous owner of my bike did, which was put the stock bar in a angle bender, and bend it a few degrees to the same effect.

[MadMax96]

Nice mod!    I have to say, that is one clean looking RF you got there judging by those up-close shots - do you have any pics that show the whole bike?  I've always liked the design of them.

[Dr. Zorko]

Here is a side view with bags....

[MadMax96]

Niiice!  I still think that design w/ the side gills looks great today, not dated really at all.  I can always tell the people who aren't really into bikes like I am when they see ones like that - "what the heck is that?"  

[Dr. Zorko]

Too true. I used to get that with an old Kawasaki Z1 that I had modified quite a bit.  "What kind of bike is that?"

[whoaru99]

Here is a side view with bags....

Please tell me more about the bags.

[Dr. Zorko]

The bags are 40 liter Kappas. I picked them up a couple of years ago for around $375.00 CAN. As far as I know they are very much the same as GIVIs, built in the same factory, so I'm told. I have them mounted to homemade racks. I made them up out of aluminum stock and had them welded up at a local shop. The whole thing cost me about $50.00 to do including the welds. The mounting hardware is homemade as well. The bottom mounts are made up of those flush type cabinet bolts with faucet washers over top, spaced with some stainless steel collars. The top mounts were cut out of ABS plastic, a slot routed in to match the luggage latch and finished up with a bench sander.

I also had to relocate the turn signals. Two holes in the license plate bracket took care of that.

[veefer800canuck]

Nice work on the handlebars and bag mounts!  

[jschmidt]

Great idea. Another option is to chack with a clip on maker. They almost all sell replacement aluminium tubes that wou be perfect for this. And not too expensive.

[whoaru99]

Yeah, nice work on the bag mounts.

Is the flat bar across the top that mounts to the passenger grab mount the only attachment to the frame? Or, is the rod at the lower rear and or are the lower front corners attached to the bike in any way?

[1KPerDay]

Extremely cool mods on both ends.

[Dr. Zorko]

Is the flat bar across the top that mounts to the passenger grab mount the only attachment to the frame? Or, is the rod at the lower rear and or are the lower front corners attached to the bike in any way?

There is a rod that connects the two frames at the bottom rear (runs in behind the license plate) and each of the frames are also connected to the bike's stock bungee rails at the lower front. There was a convenient bolt fitting already there. The main load is carried by the thick main cross bar that attaches to the grab rail mounts. It's pretty sturdy, with the only movement coming from the entire seat frame rail assembly. Can't ask for more, I guess.

[whoaru99]

Sounds good. I'm going to have to see what I can fab up.

Thanks.

[Dr. Zorko]

Some more photos....

[No Cam]

Nice Mods  

I noticed you have the early springy ergo version of the Throttle Rocker.  Take good care of that; they aren't made like that anymore to my knowledge.  The only way the ergo version is available is with the Velcro strap (which kind of sucks); you can't adjust it on the fly.  The springy (can't think of a better way to describe it)  is only available as a straight paddle.

Sorry for the HiJack    Back to normal programming.

No Cam  

[whoaru99]

Some more photos....

Thank you for the additional pictures. They are very helpful.

Now I need to get on with it....

[Mach VIII]

Nice Mods  

I noticed you have the early springy ergo version of the Throttle Rocker.  Take good care of that; they aren't made like that anymore to my knowledge.  The only way the ergo version is available is with the Velcro strap (which kind of sucks); you can't adjust it on the fly.  The springy (can't think of a better way to describe it)  is only available as a straight paddle.

Sorry for the HiJack    Back to normal programming.

No Cam  

Unless I'm mistaken, that's actually a "CrampBuster" instead of a "Throttle Rocker" and is still readily available.  I have a Crampbuster (the smaller narrower version actually) on 2 different bikes currently and my roommate recently bought one for his bike as well.  I'm familiar with the Throttle Rocker design with the velcro, as I used to have one of those.  That design absolutely SUCKS compared to the Crampbuster, as you can't adjust it on the fly like you can the Crampbuster.

And to the Dr., nice work on the handlebar mod.  I'm currently running a set of Heli-bars that cost a lot more money and I don't know that they made much more (or less) difference than did your home-fab bars.  I'm wondering about trying out a set of spacers though as you had originally done.  I also recently heard about a mod for the RFs that involve completely eliminating the top clamp and using a set of risers along with traditional handlebars (or even helibars).

[Dr. Zorko]

Unless I'm mistaken, that's actually a "CrampBuster" instead of a "Throttle Rocker" and is still readily available.

Nope! Says Throttle Rocker right on it. It may be an early design, before the Velcro strap came along. The Crampbuster has the built in wrap around feature but is a slightly different shape. Perhaps Crampbuster Co. had the rights to the full plastic design. Any one know the story there?

[No Cam]

Nope! Says Throttle Rocker right on it. It may be an early design, before the Velcro strap came along. The Crampbuster has the built in wrap around feature but is a slightly different shape. Perhaps Crampbuster Co. had the rights to the full plastic design. Any one know the story there?

==============================

What I heard at the Indy dealers show a few years ago is that Crampbuster had patent on the wraparound design but nothing about the ergo shape of the paddle so TR started making it wraparound with the ergo paddle.  Well the suits at CB had a hissy fit and sued TR and won.  That forced TR to come up with the velcro wrap with the ergo paddle, only for the US market; and CB got the wraparound w/o the ergo paddle.  I have heard, but not verified that they are still available the old way from TR in Europe. So if you all have the TR early ergo design with the wrap around, don't loose it, works much better than the velcro, you can adjust on the fly.  

NC