Re: Bar raisers
t2grr said:
Would bar raisers not mean I would bend my back further back?
I have long arms and am not stretching to reach the bars at the moment.
Thanks everyone for all your input so far.
Graeme
let me Guess,,,
keep in mind I know very little about your case or biometric template, but I can also assume that your shoulders are on the wide side and your arms on the long end(is call positive index)
I bet you have pain....
*in between your shoulder blades.
*discomfort and numbness on your fingers, hands and pain on your wrist.
* the "Pinky" side of your hands hurts more.
* also your knees don't feel that well..
I'm pretty sure this is your first and main problem is do to the Sweep on the bars.
NOTE: this is show on a R1150r but the problem is the same
basically the Bend(sweep, ,pullback, pronounce angle of the grip) on the bars is forcing your hands to be on a different axis than the rest of you body,, in short your shoulders are far wider than the angle that the handlebars permit them to be comfortable.
do your self a favor and go and seat on your bike and you will notice how the palm of your hand "seats"(rest on top) of the grips on a angle of about 15 degrees(not perpenticular to the grip)(the wider the shoulders the worst this gets)when you try to apply full force to the levers your palm has the tendency to try to get in full contact with the grip, but this is difficult to achieve since the bars are more bend than they need to be ,when that happened your wrist is force into a unnatural angle (distal lock) since it can not move any farder(about 15 degrees of motion each way) the fore arm tries to compensate by moving next to the torso trying to align with the angle of the bars, the side effect of this is that the elbow get lock up and the end result is that your body end up steering the bike with your shoulder, this producing acute pain in your upper back specially in between your shoulder blades since the back duty is to rotate on the spine, something that the spine and upper back is not really design to do..
also assuming your arms are really long you have a added axis to deal with,,
I'm sure your elbows are lower(in reference to the ground) than your hand holding the bars, this generate one more axis for the wrist, ergo even more restriction in the nerves ,blood flow, and inefficiency on the muscles...
so what to do...let start from the bottom.
*you need to increase your leg room.
it can be done in a different ways, I prefer to do a little of everything so the impact is not to focus
get lower foot pegs like this
so your legs and knee have more leg room, even better if they are wide since they spread the load of your body in a wider area decreasing pain and focal points.
*get a seat as tall as your are confident with, actually is many advantages to that, plus the bike will handle like a dream, you can also move your butt a little back to increase leg room.
the last thing you want is a CORBIN Seat, they are the worst for tall people, hell they are the wrost for any GS since the seat you really low and farder back but also since the are so wide they don't really give you a stand over height advantage.
*if you have long arm as i think you do you need to make more room for your arms so they are almost fully extent(not completely extend) this will empty a lower and more forward possition of the grips,the basic idea is to have the least amount of bend in any of your articulations that way the blod flows better and the nerves are not constricted
*the bar need to be "Flatter' so they for a proper trapezoid in reference with your shoulders, the arms need to be in line and your elbow pointing OUT as oppose to IN this way they will have a natural range of motion decreasing the pain in a big way...
I better stop before my head and your blow up..
NOTE Barbara from Alaska leather is one of the greatest people in the industry and I'm sure if you buttpad took so long to get to you home was not her fault,maybe the shipping method selected was to slow or the postal office not to efficient but for sure she was "on the ball" as ussual, BARB is fantastic and i wish the rest of the people on the industry were as careful and caring as she is..
I hope this helps,,the misconception are for sure many, and get even wrost when people Focus on "name product" as oppose to solutions..
remenber each person is diferent and their need vary do to a million difernt factors,the problem is to analize them and come to terms with them to produce a good compromise
... but the next 250 plus miles of nice twisty A roads is no problemo 
and far more entertaining.
