Saturday, June 16, 2007
Cheap bar risers
Finally, it's a low buck tech entry. I've decided I wanted the handlebars on my Suzuki GS500F to be a bit higher. I could have done a bar swap - I did that on the CX500. But they're a fair amount of hassle, and the typical junkyard bars are chrome plated, which would look weird on a sportbike. At least not without a bunch of chrome accessories. I'd been thinking about getting bar risers, but those are expensive. Finally one of the guys at ValuCycle had a suggestion when I told him I was looking for bar risers.It's pretty simple. Get a second set of the tops of the bar mounts. Flip the ones you have upside-down, and put the new bar mounts on top of them with extra-long bolts. I found a replacement set of bar mount caps at GSTwins.com from a guy parting out a wrecked bike in the Classifieds section, and picked up some M8 x 50 bolts from the local hardware store. The result is that my bars are now an inch or so higher for a total of around $20. Much cheaper than a set of $100 Gen-Mar bar risers. They don't pull back the bars like Gen-Mars, but at my height I need more rise and don't really need the bars brought back anyway. Which would also mean they're more appropriate in my case than the aftermarket risers. The bars feel just about perfect - I'll have to see how much of an improvement this makes on my commute.
Labels: Motorcycles
