Shortening Handle Bars Q:

[Noel]

Hi,
I have a slight problem spent last weekend altering the gate to rear of our terrace house, so I can get the GS up the entry! It fits fine but I have to remove the hand guards and end weights for the bike to fit, Handle bars complete are 3ft wide entry if 3ft wide would like to make life easy for myself so if I want to go for a ride it's not a 20 min job to reassemble bike first any ideas appreciated.
Regards

 

[Telford]

Bin there, done that!

Same problem here. With some advice from others I cut just over an inch from the middle of the bars and welded them back together with a length of bar inserted to strengthen the join. That's about the most you can remove coz of the bend and the holes for heated grips.

Got some shorter, stainless, bar ends made by a mate on his CNC lathe. Overall width is now 33" but I still can't fit the hand guards and get it down the side of the house. So I get wet hands in the rain.

Also removed the bar mounted mirrors and replaced with car wing mirrors at the front. search for PANDA for pics.

Now I've had a bit of practise I can get in and out without too much bother.

Another inch or so per side could be gained if the rubber mounting could be modified but that looks a bit tricky.

Pint6x has used 1150R bars, I'm not sure what overall dimensions they give though.

Good luck

Mark

 

[Tobers]

I swapped my std GS bars for R1150R bars to make it easier to sneak inbetween traffic. Made the whole bike seem more compact and chuckable as well.

The transplant is fairly painless and took about 3 hours going v.slowly. Main issues are fiddling the heated grip wires out and then back in (you need to disconnect them from the contacts under the front of the tank), and finding the secret hidden screws in order to remove the grips (now that would be telling!).

The R1150R bars are significantly narrower than the GS ones but I cant remember exactly how much. Best solution is to sneak into your local BM dealer with a tape measure. The new set of bars cost about £90 I think and the dealer had them in the day after I ordered them. All the fittings are the same and everything just slots straight back on in the correct places, with the correct holes for heated grip wires, and correct threads for bar ends etc. The hand grip positioning is a bit fiddly but easily sorted once you route the cables properly like I didn't.

 

[Noel]

Thanks for the advice. Keep any more experiances coming, I'm now unsure which way to go.