Windshield Tech!

I’d spent most of the day (Saturday) cleaning the house - gotta have a somewhat presentable homestead when everyone shows up in less than a week…but I digress. I’d had enough of the happy housemaid stuff and needed something a little more enjoyable to focus on. And swapping out windshields was just the (quick) fix I needed.

First; some background; the stock windshield is too high, so Zig and I bought some low profile ones off of eBay. Zig went with a 4.5 inch one and I opted for an 8 inch one. Zig’s shield came in and he installed it, but wound up not liking it. It was too short; the wind coming over it, combined with the wind riding up from his fairing, was buffeting the crap out of his head. I’ve been keeping an eye out for my windshield to show up…not sure why mine took over a week longer to arrive than Zig’s did, but whatever. Mine showed up Saturday morning and I was itching to get it on and tried out. So let’s proceed, shall we?

Here’s a pic of the bike with the original windshield…

Now it was time to lay out the items that would be needed. Let’s see…windshield? Check (still in protective wrapper). Torx wrenches? Check. Beer? Check!


(The windshield comes flat, but it bends easily, to fit the contour of the fairing.)

Removing the old windshield was a breeze; three bolts hold the shield in place. I should have realized (from looking at the new windshield) that I wouldn’t need to fully remove the bolts, in order to remove the windshield. But I did remove the bolts all the way. No biggie, just means a few more twists of the torx wrench.

Here we find my bike, sans windshield. Poor thing looks bald! (That's the top of the rear seat sticking up in the background.)
Here’s a shot of the old shield, next to the new shield. Notice the new shield has had the protective wrapping removed. Notice also the level of tinting of the new shield. I would like to point out that this windshield was touted by the seller as being “not too dark. You can see through it.” Sure looks pretty dark to me.

What’s that? Oh…yeah...there’s a new beer in the pic. Uhm…what can I say…I really worked up a sweat with those extra turns of the torx bolts.

And here we have the new windshield, installed. The whole process took less than 5 minutes.
The last step was to test it out. Rolling out to the highway, I ripped things wide open and soon was screaming along at just under a hundred. (Gotta get a full-wind test!). Results? The windshield is too short and there’s too much wind. Dammit! Not to mention that I can see through this thing about as easily as I can see through my sunglasses at midnight. Which means that there's an area at the bottom of my range of vision which is basically...well, I can't call it a blind spot, but it sure isn't easy to view anything on the ground that comes within 5 feet of the front of the bike (which includes everything that goes under my tire...).

I had the bike out on the highways again last night, had to run up to the North Shore. 80's and 90's for long stretches, which was a good real-world test of the shield. But again; too much wind. And a new twist; with the backflow of air that's going on, I had to keep pushing my shades back onto my face, as they were being blown forwards, off of my head. Not exactly a fun time.

So this shield will be great for around-town and commuting (rarely get over 50mph), but for highway trips, I'm going to have to go back to the stock one. Or maybe try another shorter-than-stock one, if I can find one that's clear (enough of this "You can see through it" crap). And if nothing else works, I'll just try cutting the stock one down.

Because I'm certain I can't screw that up...

Ride Hard, Take Chances