#1: Replacing the crappy handlebars on the
Virago Author: jonnythan, Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:17
pm
I'm sure I'm not the only one who
has gotten wrist cramps from the bizarre angle of the stock Virago
handlebars.
So, I replaced mine with some bars from eBay that have
a 5" rise and 5.25" pullback. They're 31.5" wide overall: Auction
They have a much more natural angle. My
wrists aren't bent inward anymore.
The problem is that the clutch
lever/left mirror mount and the master cylinder/right mirror mount are
angled such that a handlebar without so much pullback causes the mirror
stems to point inwards.
As a solution, I ended up buying an
aftermarket master cylinder whose mirror mount is orthogonal to the
handlebars: New master cylinder
Two interesting things about
this MC:
1) It's much, much more sensitive than my stock MC. It
takes much less force to brake. 2) The mirror mount is "regular"
threaded instead of backwards "Yamaha" threaded, so I bought new mirrors.
As for the clutch side, I bought the clutch mount (and lever and
associated bolts) for a V-Star from RideNow.com. It wasn't til they came
in that I realized the V-Star had a 1" handlebar instead of 7/8". I was
able to wrap some rubber between the clamp and the bar to get it mounted.
I'm still searching for a more permanent solution - if anyone has any
ideas, please let me know about them.
Anyway, the bars fit
very well. I had to reroute the throttle cable down the handlebar instead
of through the cable keeper on the forks, cut the old switches off and
wire them directly to the switches built into the new lever mounts, but
other than that everything is peachy keen.
I'm working on some
pictures and will be putting them up shortly if I can get the site to
work.
You can see one here: |