Tuesday, Aug 6 2013 [1296 miles]
Latest farkle
Handlebar risers
Risers and hardware
The latest planned addition to my R1200GS arrived this morning. I saw a picture of these in an advrider posting and liked what I saw. A slight rise and a slight set back. I think this will put me in my preferred seatting position. As is typical with this type of change I won’t really know until after a few long rides. I can always remove them if I don’t like the result.
Bar removed
Risers installed.
Bar re-installed
I put a soft rag on the tank before removing the bars. There was enough slack in the hydraulic and electrical lines to lay the bars on the front of the tank. I installed the risers, torquing the front then the rear. That was repeated when re-installing the bars on the risers.
Between 0 and 10 degrees
Clutch cable slack
Console view with risers
I rotated the bars approximately half way between the 0 and 10º mark. That’s about where they were before adding the risers. There looked to be enough slack, but I wouldn’t know for sure until the bike was taken off of the stand and I could rotate the handlebars from lock to lock. I put my handlebar bag back on the bike and checked out the view of the console. Surprise! I’ve a better view than I had without. I used to have to stretch my neck a touch to see the bottom of the console above the handlebar bag.
I took the bike off the lift and put it on the center stand to check cable slack at full lock. It’s tight. Probably OK in that I can still wiggle the lines. But… how about dropping a fork leg and moving the cables? I tried that with the brake/throttle lines. It was worse. I put the lines back to stock.
The instructions show a picture of a relocated brake line that might be necessary on some bikes. On my bike it is the clutch side that is a touch tight. However, I can still bang the bars agains the stops without doing any damage to the lines. I’ll live with it the way it is.