Mirrors

**Viking01** · 28th August 2017, 09:18

Rastus,
Good morning. Just to continue a little further down along your tangent.

One of my two regular mates has been hassling me for a while to get rid of
the VFR (Never!!), and to get a more upright Adventure style machine like
the two of them (Suzuki V-Strom DL1000 and KTM 1190).

"We could start doing some gravel roads together", I think was the collective
refrain. [ Both of them currently on road tyres, yes, good idea .... 8-)

But while I hate to admit it, the more upright riding position does have some
attractions for ageing knees and hips.

So, to try and force the issue, he turned up in my driveway Sunday two weeks
ago (completely unannounced) with the Suzuki, tosses me the key and says
"Now go ride the b@#$%& thing for a couple of weeks, get some kms under
your belt, and don't return it until you have".

So I've duly been out for a few rides of several hundred kms over the last two
weeks, and have to say that I was duly impressed.

No, this is not a Suzuki endorsement, so any Suzuki riders reading this post,
you can just go back to whatever you were doing .....

Apart from a slightly more comfortable riding position, what I did notice was
that being more upright, not only was my head higher up (giving an improved
field of vision), but my neck was straighter and the chin of my helmet could
clear my shoulder easily. So doing head checks was definitely much easier.

And since his V-Strom did not have dome mirrors, I had to rely on mirror and
head checks when doing lane changes.

From a practical point of view, the first two points of my earlier post have
been addressed.

I also went to the optician last Friday, and have decided to return to fixed
focus lens (away from progressive lens), so the new glasses might even
address the third point to some degree. We'll see in due course.

Any new machine might still get fitted with dome mirrors, though.

Anyway, to get back to your point:

Yes, I agree with your point the riding position for some machines definitely
doesn't help the rider with doing head checks.

**Old Steve** · 28th August 2017, 14:26

On my Boulevard M50 I've spent $20 or so and fitted mirror extenders. These raise the mirror about 15 mm up and move it outwards about 35 mm, gives much greater rear vision.

I would say that this expenditure if on a par with that spent on heated grips for best money spent on the bike - though the mirror extenders are useful right throughout the year.