Bar Risers

I added risers to my RT last week. They were one of my birthday presents. I ordered them from eBay, and as you can see, they are reasonably priced. Installation took all of 10 minutes and I used a torque wrench as well. Bolts were torqued to 14 ft/lbs as directed by the cognoscenti. My only complaint was that there were no directions or specs of any kind shipped with the riders. The risers are knock off of Moto-techniques and a little cheaper to boot.

My first ride with them was Friday, the 11th. What a difference! The ride felt more like a UJM than a sport tourer. Think of a R1200GSA. It seemed easy to ride and handle as I sit straight up or nearly so now. I would also say that with the risers I put less weight on my hands and wrists, which leads to a more neutral feel and less numbness as I am not gripping as tightly. For some reason as more weight is on my wrists and hands, my grip tightens more.

All in all, it was a good upgrade. The disappointment came with the Calsci windscreen I ordered. I ordered an XL windscreen from them and it came with a slight crack in one of the holes for the mounting screw and it looked like it had marks as if it had been on a bike. I sent it back and hope to get a replacement soon. The owner of Calsi said:

"Since we have our trade policy, some of our windshields have been mounted and ridden for a couple miles. We don't throw them away.

Mark"

I will take him at his word and hope for the best. I've received very good reports from those that use Calsci windscreens and from my research, there does not seem to be incidents of the struts breaking with a Calsci windscreen installed like there is with Cee Baileys.  Some will say that Cee Baileys is made of polycarbonate as opposed to acrylic, but I have not read of any problems because of this. I also like the fact that Calsci seems to use science in their designs as opposed to aesthetics. I could be wrong, but everyone I have read that owns one says the efficacy against turbulence with a Calsci is second to none.

That said, the weather is getting better and I plan on riding more, trying to get some mileage on the bike. Right now I am at 798 miles total, 348 for the year. Yesterday reached 63 degrees and the bike really liked the temps. It just ran flawlessly for the most part. One thing I did notice was that my average mileage has dived to 38.5mpg. I had been getting 40.5-42.5 previously. I did hear some pinging once on the last ride, in which I had a full tank. My take is crappy Iowa corn whore fuel. I did put premium in the tank, but I bet premium sits in the gas station tanks here a lot longer than the other grades. It also has ethanol, which sucks. Trying to find a top tier gas station in Iowa is almost as hard as finding one without ethanol in fuel. All I can say is, stay away from Kum and Go or Casey's if you need good fuel. We have one Phillips 66 in my area. How I wish for Sunoco Ultra 94.

Until next time, keep the rubber side down and the shiny side up. I'll let you know how the windscreen turned out.

Thank you for reading this blog.