Decided a while back to put pullbacks/buckhorn bars and a lower seat on my 883. I enjoyed the work, as always, and I learned a lot about ergonomics and bike geometry. I fumbled a little bit, estimating the length of cables needed for the bars I bought. I finally settled on 10-over, which worked out fine. After a week & a half of getting parts in and installing them, plus lengthening the handlebar wiring, I finally got out for a 100 mile tour of the Ozarks yesterday. Here's what I learned:
1) Don't buy a seat without sitting on it first. I ordered online for the look I wanted. I'm gonna have to replace the rock hard seat.
2) My memory of pullback sportster bars from the late 70s are better than reality. Will have to replace my new bars, too. The problem is, they come far enough back into my seating area that I can't actually lean forward on them, like with stock bars. I can only hold them with a constant pull backwards. That moves all the tension to my fingers and away from my palms. It also puts a different sort of strain on my lower back. On the plus side, my mirrors ended up way farther to the outside, increasing my rear visibility.
3) I understand why racers are so enamored of clip-on controls. Having the grips high over the forks and farther back makes turning, for lack of a better word, twitchy. The extra leverage, high and behind the forks, makes me tend to wander back and forth across the lane in turns.
All good things to know.
Back to the drawing board. Will probably opt for a 6" rise or less on some mini apes. And, definitely, more padding in the seat. But I really do like the new look. The relocated turn signals unclutter the handlebars a bit, so they're a good change. I moved them up to just under the upper tree after this pic.
An extra thing learned (or anticipated). It will be much easier to switch to a different set of handlebars, because I didn't route the wiring through the bars but, instead, clipped them to the outside.
06-29-2020, 07:02 AM
Finished handlebar & seat mods
