Handlebars
Our bike came to us with a set of K&N bars. They looked cool but they are too wide and pull back too far for our style or ridings. The 1967 Harleys' used a rubber mount to isolate vibration. In adding this comfort feature for American riders Harley destroyed any road feel a sport rider might be looking for.
Cycle Magazine reviewed the 67 Sprint and Sportsters in the November 1966 issue. This is what they said about the rubber handlebar mounts "We would also respectfully suggest that their engineers do something about the handlebar mounting. The bars are rubber-mounted, which is a good thing, as this prevents vibration from making one's hands all numb during a long trip. But rubber mounting also allows the bars to move some considerable amount before anything happens at the forks, which introduces a rubbery feel into the steering that very nearly spoils the bike basically good handling."
With the long K&N bars and rubber mounts just pushing the bike around the garage was like wrestling with buttered spaghetti. We hopped over to the Yahoo Aermacchi Group and asked for suggestions. We got a recommendation to seek out OEM Part number 56157-62B. These are solid spacers that replace the rubber mounts. We found a pair on eBay and ordered them up.
Next was selecting the right handlebars. Our past off road riding experience influenced us greatly here. We prefer to be weighted more towards the bars for better control of the forks. We selected a set of Flanders style bars similar to those found on the BMW R90S. These bars provide the classic sport touring positioning we desired. Unfortunately these bars did not play well with the large Aermacchi Ala Verde fuel tanks found on the 67 & 68 H Models. These tanks are very tall and even the 3 inch raise on the Flanders bars was not enough to prevent contact between the bar ends and the side of the tank. Bar end mirrors would have been out of the question. We tried rolling the bars forward for a cafe racer look but the look did not work well on this bike at all. Finding the right balance with this bikes styling is critical.
We really like the look of the Sprints' Italian cousin the Ala Verde, but going to a full clip on bar like the Ala Verde would be a bit pricey.
We took some styling queues from other 1950's Italian Sport bikes and found a set of clubman style bars at Guzzino.com that would provide the low flat look we wanted. These are 7/8" chrome bars sounded like just the ticket for smaller Italian single Clubman bars at Guzzino.com not too wide like other Clubmans and just slightly dropping. The bars with shipping adds another $79.00 to the project balance sheet (see our prior post on Total Cost of Ownership).
Our bars arrive today with a thank you note from Paul at Guzzino.com and since it is snowing again we decided to fit them while trapped inside on a winters day.
We installed the bars with the solid spacers so that the profile of the bike would show them as laying flat when viewed from the side or while in motion just like the Ala Verde. I think we nailed the Italian Sportivi La Moto look
No comments:
Post a Comment