Buffering, maybe a solution!

[klingklang]

Hi, I'm new to tiger. I just bough one but I will be able to ride it only next spring because I Leave in Quebec,Canada and the winter is here grrrr.

So, I can't try the following but I'm sure some of you will do. Since i'm french speaking, I like to go on french forum a bit. Here is something interesting I found on a site of a guy living in France which give some of his tips.  The guys found that the first thing that cause the buffering on the tiger is the mirrors. He tried his tiger without mirrors and notice that there is far less buffering. He than tried his old honda mirror (africa twin). The bufferring is back but there is no more vibration on the mirror. What makes him say that the mirrors are bad on every points.  After modifications to his tiger mirror he found that the buffering has moved to his upper arm instead of his head.  Next pics from his site.



Original mirrors positions







new mirrors positions





His page about the mirror buffering

http://1000n.pouz.free.fr/TigerWeb/entretien/retros.html





That remind me something I read on a test on different big trail bike. On the test, it  comes out that the Honda Varadero and Aprilia Caponord had the best protection. Notice the mirrors arm shape on those two bike in the following pictures. They were the only two bike with that configuration.













So, maybe this guy Idea not bad at all. I'm anxious to see other tiger owner try that now since I cant.



sorry for my english!

kk

[Brock]

kk...A Big welcome. It will be worth the wait 'till next spring.

The mirror idea is a good one.

Did I hear someone tried some GS mirrors and they were better?

Only problem is, you'd be left with the rest of the bike to get rid of...

[Patrick the Scot]

Hey, didn't we here that some Tiger owners were putting FZ1 mirrors on the fairing of the Tiger?  Apparently, this mod made the bike look racier, but does anybody know if it helped with the buffeting/headshake?

[Robmac]

Interesting, from my own experience with other big trailies such as the Africa Twin and Varadero, I found the buffeting as bad, in fact I got so fed up I bought a Tiger, experimented with different screens and ended up with the Sports screen which is about as good as I can get it.

Whilst the mirrors must contribute I think it must be more about your body/heasd height in relation to the screen height, and also the distance from your head horizontally to the screen itself. The GS suffers from the same problem, and an aftermaket solution is to bring the screen nearer the rider with different brackets (cant remember the guys name that does them).

Personally, as a short a**e (5' 8") I seem to have a lot more problems than over 6' ers.

Theres another thread about Ceebailey screens being ok, I found the one I got, 6" higher and 4" wider hopeless, in addition to which It reduced the steering lock so much it made through town manouvering dangerous.

Rob

[Guest]

Whilst the mirrors might contribute to the buffeting, I have found that a good deal of the wind comes off of the fairing either side, where the fairing is at its narrowest just below where the screen sits. I have made up some deflectors (1.5mm polypropelene) which effectively make the fairing wider in this area by up to 60mm. The wind noise and buffeting are greatly reduced. Can't make it too wide because the handlebars turn into this area.



I've thought for a while that the Honda mirrors would be the solution to the CeeBaileys~mirror hitting problem but I cannot afford the Honda prices!

[klingklang]

anywone want to try it without the mirrors and give us some comments?

[Patrick the Scot]

Hell yeah, why not?  I try it w/o mirrors and panniers and with both. I'll post if I detect any real difference.  I'll have to wait for a calm day to conduct any real evaluation, as lately we have had steady 35mph winds straight out of Colorado.