New member from the high desert

fkystreet said:

sweet! so I see 3 motorcycles there. You have all 3 of them?
looking to buy a street or just browsing?

Click to expand...

Ah, there are only two bikes depicted, my ancient BMW and my 2007 Street Rod. Those bottom two photos are of the same bike after a few minutes of wrench turning. The Street Rod can be converted in a few minutes from hard bags to none, or the cordura Sport Saddlebags not shown. The big clear Supersport Windshield, which is not even a Street Rod accessory but I finagled it on the bike anyway , can be removed and replaced with the black "Drag Screen" from the 2007 VRSCX in another couple of minutes. The risers and instrument housing are from a Night Rod Special, the drag bars from Flanders.

The hard bags are intended for a VRSCA, the original anodized aluminum V-Rod. A BMW tech buddy helped me modify the mounting hardware to permit them to be attached to the mounting points for the cordura Sport Saddlebags I already had and, after a couple of trials and errors, brought them in close enough to the rear fender so the right bag clears the upper exhaust can. It was a lot of work but well worth it.

The wheels are from the XR-1200. All three brake rotors are those used on the front wheels of wire wheel V-Rods (300 mm diameter vice 292 mm for the XR-1200 part), stock XR-1200 front axle and spacers just happend to work, but mounting the rear wheel, calculating gearing, finding a suitable rear pulley (from Japanese market Sportsters, rubber isolated) and a suitable length belt (from Victory narrowed from 28 mm to 1 inch), along with making spacers, was a real engineering project. The gearing ended up being almost identical to that of the BMW, which is perfect for me. Big long legs for high speed desert running.

The shocks are rebound and preload adjustable Works Performance Street Trackers, in a custom length 13 mm longer than stock to get back the cornering clearance lost by switching to 1 inch diameter smaller wheels at each end. Race Tech springs and Gold Valve complete the suspension.

The benefits of all this work are quicker steering, absolutely neutral steering (with some friction on the throttle you can take your hands off the bars in a long curve and the bike remains leaned over cornering), no tendency to stand up or run wide if you brake in a corner, and the 18 inch front and 17 inch rear wheels allow me to run premium sport touring rubber not available in sizes to fit the stock rims. If you look at the photos you can see I have used Dunlop Roadsmarts and Michelin Pilot Road 2 and 3s. All are great tires and much better than any that fit most stock HD rims.

This is what happens when you let a long term BMW rider spend too much time with a V-Rod, heh,heh, heh. Function uber alles, of course.

I would like to at least ride a Street. I would like something like an SV-650 or F-800 sized bike to play with in the canyons. I am thinking the Street is cheap compared to an F-800, leaving some budget for a male slider fork, XR-1200 (or some other ???) wheels and premium shocks. I like the build quality and reliability of the V-Rod engine so I have some expectations for the Street. If I bought an F-800 I would still have to pony up another $1500 for Ohins adjustable dampers and springs for the fork and another $750 or so for a Works Performance shock to make it work, on top of the $11 grand price of entry. New XR-1200 wheels are about $320 each (they listed for $319 when I bought them). You can't even buy used wheels for many bikes that cheap.