Anyway, it took me about 20 minutes to remove both handlebars, so I could swap them. Turned out to be a bad idea : the C-bar with fairing did not work on the XP. Since the XP has a bigger front wheel, the bar ends up higher than with the 20" front wheel. I ended up looking straight into the C-bar fairing and could not look over it. It looked better than the chopper bar in my opinion, but it did not work. Damn !
It looks good, but it doesn't work ....Well, the stem of the XP was already in its lowest position, but is a rather long stem, so why not cut off some of it, that would make the C-bar come down a bit. I took some measurements and concluded that if I cut off some of the stem, the C-bar could be lowered a few inches, probably enough to look over it once installed. Well, I was wrong ! After cutting the stem ( and the riser ) short, the C-bar still ended up too high and I was still looking straight into it ! It also turned out that I cut off too much of the riser, so the stem could not be attached firmly anymore ! So far for trying to fix somehting by myself (I should have known better, you're absolutely right !) ....
This is how short I cut the handlebar stem/riser .... too short !
I sent Rans an e-mail yesterday asking to send me a new stem and headtube pipe, so it'll take some time before I can ride the XP again...
And oh yes, somehting else I learned the hard way : now I understand why the XP's chopper bar fairing is so much smaller than the fairing on the C-bar, it allows you to look OVER the fairing while riding your bike !!!
3 comments:
That's a cool bike man.
can you tell me what is wrong with the chopper bar and why you like the c bar better? do they still make the c bar? I have an easy racer bar on my rans and I hate it. I am going to change to the three step chopper, but maybe the c bar would be better?
Brad, I guess that after so many miles on my old Stratus, I got used tot the C-bar. Now that I've ridden so many miles on my XP with the chopper bars, I prefer the chopper bars and don't miss the C-bars at all. The chopper bars give you way more possible hand positions and allows you to fine tune the set-up until you find your sweet spot.
Only thing I miss from the C-bars is the bar fairing that came with it, which was better on the C-bars : it was longer and thus closer to reach compared with the chopper bar fairing.
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