My Barkbuster Carbon hand guards had been delivered by the time I got back from Adelaide so I thought I'd spend 45 minutes or so fitting them today. Well the 'or so' turned out to be much longer than I anticipated.
Firstly I moved the lever/mirror mounts out about 4 mm, being careful not to encroach too much on the electrical cables that exit the switchblocks. Unfortunately there's still not enough space for the inner mounts to be fastened to a completely straight part of the bar, but given that I'm using these for weather protection rather than 'busting bark', the resultant compromise was acceptable, with the outer face of the mount at the 'controls' alignment mark on the 'bar. On one side, I had trouble aligning the aluminium rib with the inner mount, and found it difficult to thread the screw; after some stuffing around, it went together OK, and the other side fitted more readily. A bit of jiggling was required before tightening everything.
Then it was time to fit the guards themselves. They look quite scant compared with the heavy duty aluminium mounting and at 30 grams each, imagine the weight saving over the plastic Storm model.:grin2: The mounting brackets total 260 g per side. Like most carbon parts on a 200+ kg bike, it's really about appearance rather than weight/strength.
There's an adhesive pad to attach to the inside to cushion the fit with the rib. Tick. Then a short bar with two SS screws for the main attachment. Unfortunately the first guard I tried seemed to have some lacquer in the threads, meaning the screws wouldn't go in, exacerbated by the angled end of the threaded lug. I spent ages trying to 'cut' the thread clean using another screw with a groove cut into it. Finally, tick - without cross-threading. The final screw at the front of the guard went in readily - tick. Fortunately the threads on the other side were all clean, so the second guard went on readily.
Then it was time to stand back and admire the handiwork. I'm uncertain whether I'd prefer the rib to be black rather than anodised aluminium, and for the purpose (weather protection) perhaps something less 'heavy duty' would be aesthetically better (even just a single inner mounting rather than the full wrap-around rib). Also, by attaching to the outer side of the bar-end, the meaty part of the guard is beyond the rider's hand a little more than ideal, and similarly there's a fairly large exposed part of the rib near the headlight. Nevertheless, a short ride confirmed they meet my minimum weather protection requirement, shielding fingers from the elements. The plastic Storm model would provide a little more protection for those who would prefer it, but vanity means I'm happy with the Carbon model.