quote:
Clubman bars are not an easier solution to anything - furthermore they are the new hipster fashon accessory, which makes them gay. When you own a bike as large as a railroad switch engine, such as the DOHC cb750f clubmans are easy to install, but when you have a smaller bike like a SOHC honda where the brake M/C and lines are jammed up against the gauge housing then it is a down right pain in the arse. It is even more complicated when you have internal wiring to deal with. Plus the bikes are so wide that it is very hard to have them not hit the tank. On a SOHC cb750 it is more work to install clubmans than clipons, and rarely do you have a good angle for your wrists.
As for the clipons on top of the clamp:
1) that is how 100% of the factory race replicas come out. Go to your new bike dealer and look at a cbr, gsxr, or zx1000r and you'll see what I mean.
2) when setting up old bike suspensions for handeling, usually you rake them forward. This is usually accomplished by 1" taller shocks in the rear, and sliding the forks through the trees by an inch. since they are sticking up anyway you might as well cover them up with the clip ons. cb750s, kawasaki h1's, kz's, GS's all benefit from this setup.
3) Unlike the DOHC cb750F, most old bikes have headlight ears around the forks so running the clipons underneath means you need to find another way to hang you headlight.
4) it shortens your reach and makes it easier to lean over the bike.
Telefix are a fucking fortune. Unfortunatly for the DOHC cb750, they seem to be the only ones that work with that bike because the thing is such a pig (heavy front end) with weird egronomics. All clip on bars are adjustable as to the pull back and height as long as you are willing to move them up and down the fork, the only real adjustability is in the angle of the bar.
I do not agree with your statements, but we can agree to disagree without falling in wonted retorting.
Club man bars solve the desire for a rider to have a more speed friendly motorcycle. I say so because a low and aerodynamic posture keeps your body throrax off wind gusts and currents sustained under high speed riding. When I had the family stock bars in place, it was a darn unconfortable position to be in, vertical vertebraes accruing weight on each other, like a tower, making it painfull and boring, but foremost , the position forced me to hold on to the handlebars with more strenght, using valuable energy and tensing my upper body because the force of the oncoming wind on the upper body is a force to reckon with. Club man bars eliminate this problem. Added to that, cafe people, we like the look of the bike with low handlebars , so that is an added feature.
Your anthropomorphism about gay stuff , I leave you alone with that, if you feel gay because of using club man bars , then you need to go deal with that with your local psyquiatrist. Those comments of yours are offensive, we are not here to listen to that sort of baloney.Perhaps you have not realized it, but you are vicariously telling people with club man bars that they look , or their bikes / tastes look gay. That is not the kind of statements cafe racing enthusiasts want to hear. Club man bars are part of the cafe racing experience, to dislike with such viciousness such a motorcycle part should make you re evaluate your cafe racing afinity.
Your comments about club man bars being easier to install on 70's bikes that on a CB750F 82 , again ,I do not share your views . I have seen many 70's Honda fours, and those are much smaller and narrower than the 82 model. In case of my bike, I had to cut the club man bars in two , and weld a center piece to allow it to clear the fork towers. My tank is wide, wider than a 70's, and I had to adjust for that at time of welding. On the other hand, 70's Hondas have the aftermarket club man bars made specifically for those bikes, the club man bars that I got would had fit a CB750 SOHC like hand and glove. The internet is full of those examples , Carpi motorcycles, and any SOHC Honda yopu will see in cafe trim will be either clip oned ( about 30% ) or club man bared ( 70% ).
I live in CA, here people, because of weather, ride bikes year round, and I have seen only one motorcycle with club man bars in the span of ....since 1987... when I rode my first 81 CB750F with telefix clip on bars , and it was a yellow Honda CB750F 77 or 78, the very last SOHC ones , and I saw it about 2 months ago...after all those years. I have no doubts there are and have always been club man bars on bikes, in great numbers, but not even as close as you say , to make it look like a fad.... I never saw any club man bar fad as you say. And again, much less, I do not understand your gay connotation.
All CB750F's DOHC have those ears you mentioned for headlamp location. With clip on bars in the proper location, you will have to get aftermarket headlamp brackets, which are cheap and inexpensive, making no difference at all. The aftermarket clamps are also prefered to the stock ears, even if there was a posibility of keeping the stock ones in place, because once you lower your handlebar position with clip on bars inside the forks, under the triple clamp, you want to lower a tad your headlamp, to keep everything in position, relative to one another. It would look ackward,to have your clip on bars on the forks, while the headlamp remains up and high, like a swimming pool light. But that is more of a personal issue , just wanted to mention the advantages of getting aftermarket clamps against keeping the original ears.
Any fully adjustable clip on bar, like the Telefix, or the other brands I have not seen, but mentioned by other members like the Tomaselli, are the only recomended way. The one way fit all, like the black pair I posted before, are terrible, because, like you say, you can move the whole assembly up or down on the forks , but that is not enough nor efficient, because of your cables and conections , you want to keep those fixed at a position, and there is not a lot of play for those cables.With a fully adjustable unit, the clamped part on the fork remains there, fixed once the right position is found for that clamp , and the rest of the calibration moves around the remaining axises , assuring good back, wrist and even cables and conectors position. Very important is the clearance for the gas tank. Most simple clip ons can not clear the gas tank. What I like with the Telefix ones is that the fork clamp and the handlebar are separated by a small arm with an axis. That small arm is great in assuring tank clearance. Telefix brand is not cheap, but not that expensive, probably 60 bucks more than a comparable brand. Choose the brand of your choice, but make sure it is fully adjustable. With the cheap unidimensional model clip on bar like the one I posted, ( black one) unless you have a really small bike ( 125) you will have clearance problems with the gas tank.
About clip on bars onver the triple clamp, I do not recomend it. I know it can be done, but, if you are getting clip on bars, install them the right way. If any person is going to install clip on bars over the triple clamp, it would be easier to install a flat tubular handlebar. Club man bars would do a better job than clip ons over the triple clamp.
The advantage of clip on bars over any tubular bar ( club man, flat, regular stock...) is that the control exercised over the motorcycle handling goes directly over the forks. Each clip on bar is individually afixed to each fork, so each movement the rider makes, directly steers the bike, and also directly controls is , as in the case of cornering. The regular tubular bars ( of which the best one is the club man bar, because its center of gravity is lower than the regular tall bar) do not transfer control directly to the steering parts of the bike, front tire and fork, but, your movement goes to the forks via triple clamp....the triple clamp becomes the axis. That is a tall, as far as it can be from the tire axis. Clip on bars on the forks under the triple clamp are the most effective means of transfer of control to the final steering part, the tire. The closer to the tire the better, the lower on your forks, the better.
Clip on bars over the triple clamp have the same effect tubular handlebars have. Only slightly better, because of the direct fork conection, but too high and over the triple clamp to prove efficient.
For handling efficiency, clip on bars under the triple clamp. For better position, wind advantage , but on a budget , easier installation , club man bars.
I agree with making rear peg set ups, it will help, but that will come only after you install the clip ons / club man bars. Then you will know how far to go. That is not difficult to make. For any SOHC Honda guys, there is plenty in the internet to look for.
I rode my previous CB750F with clip ons, and stock rearsets.Make it simple, have fun, look for the good side, implement as you modify. Do not get paralised because someone tells you you will need X Y and Z before you get A B and C.
Cafe racer DOHC CB750F
http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix
Edited by - jaimesix on Nov 16 2006 3:36:39 PM