Making the Falco bars more comfy for an Old Git (me)

[Falcopops]

that must be a top job, or bloody better be

[mangocrazy]

The quality of the paintwork is top notch, but after all that time that was all I was going to accept. I guess I should have pestered him, like everyone else apparently does. Anyhow...

Short progress report, pics to follow. The 'new' top fairing has been fitted to the bike or, more accurately, has heen force-fitted to the bike. Nothing lined up properly and not a single fastener went in without a fight. I can only conclude that the top fairing had suffered earlier crash damage (i.e. earlier than the damage shown in earlier pics) and was badly repaired. When re-fitting the top fairing the two air inlet 'snorkels' have to be fitted to the frame spars before the top fairing can be fitted. Then you have to fasten the snorkels and the fairing to brackets off the main frame as well as to each other. And get the mirror mounts to line up with the main fairing support bracket. You really need a minimum of three hands to do the job and preferably more. Not a single screw went in without pulling, pushing and mauling the various parts. It got so bad that on the last screw I had to enlist Mrs Mango's assistance to fit the screw while I forced all the other bits to line up.

Then when it came to the side fairings, the process was repeated - once again nothing lined up and everything had to be forced into position. It was around this time that I noticed that the fairing around the RH mirror mount had cracked and delaminated, doubtless where an earlier repair had been made. So my bargain crash-damaged fairing wasn't quite the bargain it appeared to be. And lastly, when it came to fit my fancy new belly pan, it quickly became apparent that it would never fit properly due to all the bits it mated to also being out of position. Which was a shame, as for a couple of minutes it was starting to look a bit tasty. So off it came, and back on went the little black plastic oil cooler surround. And as with every other piece, not a single screw went in without a fight.

I suspect that the bike was in a crash that deformed the main fairing bracket (very easy to do, it's made of aluminium) and over tens of thousands of miles the upper fairing developed a 'set' which I'm now trying to fight. If all else fails I can put it all back to standard, as I've kept my original (unmolested, never crashed) top fairing as a backup. But the main thing will be to road test the fairly drastic change I've made to the riding position. If that's a definite improvement then it will have been worth it.

But at least everything is buttoned up now. How long it stays that way is anybody's guess.

[mangocrazy]

OK, so in the end I relented and decided to look for a top fairing that actually fits the mounting points rather than only fits with brute force. A couple of weeks ago I managed to acquire a straight but garishly painted top fairing. This is good as I don't feel so bad about hacking rare plastics about - someones already made it look shite. No photos of that as it's already gone off to a paint man (a different one...) to make it look pretty. I've also been having some serious thoughts about those bars I had fabricated. Photo of unloved and unlovely bars below:

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I'm pretty sure that those bars will do what I want, riding position-wise, but I'm not sure I could live with them on an aesthetic basis. So I've been investigating a Plan B. This was triggered when I dropped into CMC in Clay Cross to have a quick butchers at (and a sit down on) an MT-09 SP. The answer was right in front of me - a pair of much more aesthetically pleasing bar risers. So by the power of eBay I now have a spare Falco top yoke and a pair of MT-09 SP bar risers:

DSCF3571.JPG (930.67 KiB) Viewed 26238 times

I will need to get a pair of aluminium wedges machined to fix to the top yoke so the risers have a flat base to sit on, but I have a local machine shop for that. And in case anyone is interested, this is the cut down top fairing and screen that took nearly a year to paint (and fits about as well as David Byrne's Big Suit.) Paintwork is lovely, shame it doesn't fit correctly.

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Lastly, here's a close-up of where the recently painted top fairing started cracking around the RH mirror mount. Most annoying...

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[Falco Frank]

Serious effort! Respect.

Now, my knowledge of physics (or anything else these days) seems pretty much non-existent to me these days but...

It appears to me that the ultra-high bars you had fabricated are putting the rider input (force) into the yokes/forks at least 90 degrees more than at the bar-grip.
I do not know if this makes a difference at all but, (goes without saying really) that I'd be damn cautious on the maiden outing of your Falco.

[mangocrazy]

Just a quick update - I'm (slowly) recovering from hernia surgery so not doing anything at all strenuous, but have taken a couple of pics of the 'Plan B' setup in its formative stages. A local engineering firm supplied the aluminium wedges to my specifications and I duly fixed them to the top of the top yoke using JB Weld epoxy. Once they had fully cured I faced the most nerve-wracking aspect of the whole sequence when determining exactly where to drill through the wedge/top yoke, and then matching that up on the other side.

Thankfully it went OK, and here is a pic with one 10mm hole drilled and a pilot hole for the other:

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Next step, once both holes had been drilled, was to take the top yoke back to my local engineering firm and get them to drill and press in a pair of 10mm i.d. steel sleeves to further tie the wedges and top yoke together. Here's a pic with that work completed:

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The top yoke and bars I plan to use have both gone to another local firm for Xylan coating in satin black, but before that I bolted all the pieces together using a set of old KTM bars I had, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks:

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Once all the bits are back I'll bolt them all up to the bike and see if all this faffing about has really been worth it or not...

[Falco Frank]

That looks pretty awesome!

On the FB forum we both posted in a thread has appeared by Darren Jones asking for colour scheme advice (bear with me), someone posted a video of a Falco bike meet that I assume is in Europe somewhere but, of the 16 birds present at least NINE had hi-rise bar conversions (helmets and jackets hid some too).
Here is a snip from the vid of one that looks to have totally altered the upper fairing angle?




and link to the thread for FB fans:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3629802 ... O%2CP-R]-R

[mangocrazy]

So, at long last I have a further update, and even some picures...!

The top yoke and handlebars have (finally) come back from being Xylan coated and all the little bits and pieces that are required for a conversion like this have at last popped through the letterbox, so a couple of days ago I set about putting all the pieces together. The second top fairing is (unsurprisingly) still at the painters, albeit a different painter than last time. Having said that, they all seem to work to extremely relaxed timescales. At least this means you can get a decent view of the yoke, risers and bars without bodywork getting in the way, doesn't it?

Whether you'll enjoy that view remains to be seen...

So without further ado, here's the view as you walk into the shed:

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To recap, the top yoke is OE Aprilia, as fitted to the RSV and Falco, but with two triangular aluminium wedges JB Welded to the sloping top sections. To strengthen that bond, a steel insert was pressed in to mechanically join the two parts. The risers are off an MT-09 SP and the bars are home-brewed out of 1 1/8" (28.6 mm) section steel tube for the base and uprights and 7/8" (22.2mm) tube for the grips and controls. They're basically home-brewed 'fat bars'. Welding was done by professionals, not me (my welding is shit - really shit.) Here's a closer view of the risers and bars:

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I was pleasantly surprised how easily all the parts went together. No real gotchas were encountered and things like the throttle action is better than it's ever been, even from new. This is because the throttle routing is much more relaxed and there's no tightness or binding when going from lock to lock. Having the throttle cable exiting straight down from the grip helps, and the cables are custom ones from Venhill to their 'featherlight' specification which uses marine-grade stainless steel inner wire for maximum flexibility, and a 'teflon' liner, to reduce friction and give a lighter action. All I can say is they work. And this is the rider's view:

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The bike is still on the Skylift and will stay there until the bodywork has been fitted, but I did a test sit on it, and the riding position feels massively improved. I'm still leaning forward - it's not 'sit up and beg', but it no longer feels like the bars are an extension of the wheel spindle. I'm sure my back, elbows, shoulders and wrists will thank me.

In case anyone's interested, the remote reservoir brackets came from Racetorx - they're on FB and the Web. The bracket I used for the clutch reservoir was their 'side angle perch':

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And the one for the brake reservoir was their 'Z perch':

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And here's a side-on shot of them both:

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[katie1]

Forget the fairing, just stick a fly screen on and you're off!

[mangocrazy]

Forget the fairing, just stick a fly screen on and you're off!

Haha! I'd still need to find some way to mount the headlight though...

I'm really keen to get out and see what it feels like on a longer run now, so a bit frustrated that I can't. At least the weather is pants so I don't feel quite so bad about missing out.

But I'll be on the phone to the paint guy first thing Monday morning...

[mangocrazy]

Well, it's been a while...

The top fairing finally came back from the painters in mid-August and I fitted it pretty much the next day. I was very relieved to find that all the mounting points lined up as they should, in marked contrast to the crash damaged and repaired one I'd tried previously.. This particular painter turned the work round in a little over two months, so much better than the previous guy. I was even more relieved that with the top fairing on there were no clearance issues to the screen. Clearance was tight, but we had clearance, Clarence. What's your vector, Victor?

Once everything was fitted and roadworthy it was MoT time. I always take the bikes to a little scooter emporium a stone's throw from the Sheffield Utd football ground, as they have absolutely no interest in doing any 'remedial' MoT work and I know I'll get a fair test. They are also very relaxed about exhaust noise... The bike passed with flying colours and as I was due to sail for France very soon, it was time to load the bike on the van and fit all the other stuff I needed to take around it. It always takes me 2-3 days to establish the optimum layout and make sure everything is secured and can't move around.

So the first time I actually rode the bike with its new bar layout was in France. And within 100 yards I knew that the new layout was just what I wanted/needed. Low speed manoeuvering was so much easier and the riding position just felt absolutely 'right'. I'd only gone a mile or so when I realised that I'd stopped thinking about the riding position and was just getting on with the business of riding the bike. If something is completely unobtrusive, it generally means that it's working correctly. Things only intrude when something is wrong.

There were a couple of niggles, but nothing serious. Because of the rush I'd been in I hadn't managed to fit the fancy (and very effective) anti-vibration system to the bars that is standard on the Falco (and probably all other V60 v-twin bikes in the Aprilia range). Instead I'd fitted a pair of generic eBay bar ends that rely on expanding a rubber sleeve inside the bars. Worse still, I hadn't torqued the LH one up enough and it promptly disappeared into the undergrowth somewhere. So vibes through the LH bar were very noticeable, vibes through the RH bar less so but still present. There was also the fact that I'd changed the bar material (steel vs. OE aluminium) and layout so was entering the realms of the unknown. So I need to re-work the bars to fit the OE 'mass damper' system, but that will have to wait for next year as the Falco is staying in France and the VFR is being repatriated, having served its tour of duty.

The other difference (and one I was expecting) was increased wind blast due to the screen being substantially shorter and lower than OE. This was an inevitable consequence of fitting bar risers and different bars. It wasn't excessive, but it's enough to make me try 'plan B' which is the fitment of a Bob Heath fairing screen extender. No end of TT racers use these, so they must give some benefit. Here's the link:

https://www.bobheathvisors.co.uk/produc ... extenders/

I've bought the larger of the two (go big or go home) and will be fitting it later on today. I've already fucked up the OE look of the bike by hacking the fairing and screen about, so I figure I might as well go all in. Here's a photo of the Falco lolling about on a road in the south of France next to vineyards, as you do. Hopefully it gives an indication of the degree of rise.

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[Viking]

Looking good, Mango. Sounds like your cunning plan has worked out very well.

[mangocrazy]

Cheers Viking, I am very pleased with it and the look (while different) is growing on me.

[FalcoDaz]

Hey Mango, how do you go about informing the insurance of these changes? My mate is anal about informing his insurer about everything he adds or takes away and had real issues arguing that making a bike more comfortable to ride by adding bar risers (he doesn't ride a Falco) is improving the safety and therefore should not incur a hike in premium. Insurer wouldn't have it as he was altering the steering which could have huge safety implications. Agin he argued that what he was fitting was available as an after-market accessory. I think he gave up eventually and lives with the lower position of his bars.

[mangocrazy]

Probably naughty of me, but I don't tell the buggers anything. It's just an excuse to ramp up the already salty premiums they charge.

[Falco Frank]

Even BIGGER Bob Heath extender???

https://www.bobheathvisors.co.uk/produc ... arge-size/