Drag Bars finished...

[The Anvil]

...and man lemme tell ya, what a pain in the ass between the wiring and new hydraulic lines. But I think it looks pretty bitchin'.

[Bonzo]

Very Nice

[art]

Did you put the wires inside of the bars? they look great

[John Schmidt]

Looking good bud. What's the make/model of the bars. They look pretty high, is that about an 8" rise?

[BF]

Have you riden with them yet......how do they compare to the OEM bars?  And.....more pics please!   

[Fudd]

I like the look, very sharp.

I could personally skip the internal wire routing in exchange for ease of installation.

I would like to see more pictures, also.

I might hit you up for some measurements, (someday).   

[The Anvil]

Bonzo; Thanks.

Art; Yes and thanks also.

BF; Yes they've actually been on for a few weeks and I've put about 750 miles on them and I love em. While they didn't alleviate my shoulder pinch as much as I'd hoped they are altogether more comfortable. I come from a sportbike background and I really like the more aggressive riding position. Only problem is they make me want to ride faster. 

Mr. Schmidt; They're Biker's Choice (I did choose them afterall!) and yes they're an 8" rise. I can give you the exact part number if you want it. I got them from Cruiser Customizing and I paid like 134 bucks. For the money the quality is quite good. Not perfect, but good and I'm cheap.

Fudd; Yeah, the internal wiring is optional. You could dress up the stock wires with some braiding if you really wanted to (I even found some chrome spiral wrap at a swap meet last weekend and you'd be welcome to some of it). In fact, once I ty-wrapped them to the risers they looked quite good even exposed. As far as the brake lines go, that is something I  should have done a long time ago. Remember all the bitching I've been doing about the front brakes? MASSIVE improvement in feel. I cannot overstate this. I had my buddy Eddie (fellow Valk owner) ride it to and he was floored by the improvement. Even the clutch feel is better, though not nearly as dramatic a difference as the brakes. Bleeding the brake line was a bitch because instead of doing two separate lines from the master cylinder to the calipers for the front brakes I went with a T style so it would look cleaner and it took quite a while to get all of the air out. It's one hell of a lot easier with a Mity-Vac though, that's a must-have and it cut the job time in half. I could have knocked an inch or two off the clutch* line and two inches off the brake line from the T joint to the master cylinder, but I would rather have it slightly long than too sort and that's what I got. As always the Spiegler quality is top-notch.  I will get some more pics tomorrow.

I may end up re-doing the clutch side wiring over the winter. It's a much bigger bundle than the brake side and because I didn't have quite the confidence in my ability to pull through the bars and be sure the wires would stay properly identified I wound up cutting the whole bundle in the same place. On the brake side that's fine, but on the clutch side it led to a bit more bulk than I want where I had to butt-splice them together and it's just outside of where it exits the bars. Also, since the wiring follows the inside of the bar so tightly I had to actually ADD about a foot of wire to the bundles (allowing for a service loop of a few inches) even though the reach to the bars is shorter overall. Now that I've done it once I know a bit more of what to expect and plan for so I might just redo the clutch side over the winter when I plan to tear it down for heavy maintenance anyway.

*Funny story about when I ordered the lines. I gave the guy at Spiegler the measurement for the clutch line (something like 63 inches, I don't have it in front of me).
Spiegler Guy: "You sure about that? That's a LONG line."
Me: "Yeah I know, it's for a Valkyrie."
Spiegler Guy: "Oh okay, nevermind."

 
 

[fordmano]

Looks pretty good, now you just gotta work on cleaning up them reservoirs and the reservoir covers.

[The Anvil]

Looks pretty good, now you just gotta work on cleaning up them reservoirs and the reservoir covers.

Oh don't get me started. This bike has all kinds of corrosion on it from ocean air. But that's one of the things on my list of things to do over the winter; replace or clean up corroded bits. I've also been considering having it painted. We'll see...

I also discovered just how freaking dirty it is. I haven't given it a good detailing since early summer, just wipe-downs. Well today I disturbed the crust of dirt on the rear fender and found white paint underneath.

[John Schmidt]

Hey---what's with the MR. in front of my name? Had to look twice to see who you were talking to. 

Just yanking the chain a bit.

[The Anvil]

Here's a couple pics of the whole bike before I cleaned the wires and lines up. I wish I had a closer up picture though.



Here you can see the zip tie on the riser and just behind the new custom throttle cables:



Before I tied em up (looks like poo):



I dealt with the lines temporarily by putting one zip-tie around the riser, then another around the cables and lines and then zip-tied the two together using the center zip-tie ans a standoff. It actually worked really well and looked pretty good and not zip tying the lines and cables directly to the risers meant they could rotate. It was temporary so I didn't worry about it but some chrome braiding and chrome zip ties would have dressed it up nicely were I going to leave it that way permanently.

I'll try and get a couple pics of me sitting on it to give an idea of the ergos.

Oh, and I think some underslung bar-end mirrors would look AWESOME. Unfortunately my wrists will prevent me from seeing anything.

[Big Mike]

If any of you are interested I have a new set in my garage, was going to use them on the supercharged bike but decided to stay with the OEMs.

[BF]

You don't look anything like Tony Danza.   

[The Anvil]

You don't look anything like Tony Danza.   

I know. (sadface)

[Hoser]

My butt dyno says the stockers are faster.        Just kiddin dude, they look great!  Hoser

[ValkFlyer]

Real nice work Anvil!

[The Anvil]

My butt dyno says the stockers are faster.        Just kiddin dude, they look great!  Hoser

Well there's more weight on your butt with the stockers so it makes sense!

[The Anvil]

I gave it a really good cleaning yesterday and decided to take the bags off for the hell of it. I may leave them off.

[John Schmidt]

You missed a spot!    Looks good, I like the final setup with the drag bars, my personal taste though requires they come back farther/further more. 

Last year at one point I was doing some work on the final drive and did the same thing with the bags. Took the bike for a ride before remounting them and the guard rails, actually made a difference in performance. Must be all the crap I carry is weighing me down. Left them off for nearly a week until I stopped at the store and realized I had no place to put my stuff.

[The Anvil]

You missed a spot!    Looks good, I like the final setup with the drag bars, my personal taste though requires they come back farther/further more. 

Last year at one point I was doing some work on the final drive and did the same thing with the bags. Took the bike for a ride before remounting them and the guard rails, actually made a difference in performance. Must be all the crap I carry is weighing me down. Left them off for nearly a week until I stopped at the store and realized I had no place to put my stuff.

I have particularly long arms so these fit me perfectly but I've seen a few others (Wild 1 I think) with more rearward bend on the risers but were otherwise similar.

That's a funny story. In that last pic of my bike I'm in the parking lot of Shaw's Supermarket. I went in for a couple of small things and wound up with a cart full of stuff. Pushed it out the front door then remembered that I had the bike. Had to call the wife to come get me.