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The NAKED Buell
My '99 M2 Cyclone
After living quite happily with my Cyclone for more than
a year, I began to feel that the bike had a bit of a design conflict
going between the beautifully angular bodywork and the beautifully rounded
but stylistically misplaced "windscreen".
On a whim, I decided to remove the rounded windscreen to see what the
bike looked like without it. Well, to make a short story long, I liked
the bike much better without it. To get a bit closer to the lower
& simpler profile that I wanted I also swapped the stock bars for a
pair of old-school K & N Superbike bars, which look good with the bar-end
mirrors.
Update on 02-09-2001
The consensus is in. I get more email regarding
the "Naked Buell" than anything else, at least 2 or 3 messages a day for
the last year. Mostly, people want to know the part numbers for the bars
and thank me for finding bars that don't hit the tank. Well, I have good
news and bad news in this update. The good news is that I list the part
number below. The bad news is that the bars DO hit the tank, and they do
reduce your turning circle, and if you ever drop the bike, the bars will
poke a hole in the tank. With that in mind... I don't run them anymore.
I came to a surprise revelation after putting the stock bars back on after
a year of using the K&N bars, one that I would never have known had
I not tried the K&N's. The revleation? That the stock bars are actually
DAMN GOOD. Despite hating them before I tried the lower bars, I love them
now. They work great, look fine, don't hit the tank, and make the bike
much easier to U turn and shove around in the garage. On top of that, I
dropped the bike in the driveway recently and had NO damage at all. Nothing.
If I'd have been unlucky enough to have that happen with the K&N's
on, I'd have gotten to buy a new gas tank. To summarize my experience:
The low bars look great, but don't make riding the bike one bit better,
and you're taking a chance that you'll hole the tank. If you still like
the idea of them, the information below will get you a pair.
Chaparral Motorsports (No web site)
544S. Crescent Ave
San Bernardino, CA. 92410
Phone 909-889-2761
K&N SuperBike bars - Part #90-0020, product #340-0134 - Price:
$23.99
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