Christmas Day Ride

[Rotorhead]

My 39 year old son came up from SFO yesterday, and will stay for a few days. This morning after coffee, I suited him up, and slapped him on my bike for his first ride on this steed < He rides a Coni at home > while I followed in the truck. A couple observations from us both:

The Hyper-Lights up front work very well during the day, and I'll betcha even better at night. The OEM headlights look very yellow and washed out, and they'll be replaced with Sylvania SilverStar Ultra's next month when the seat goes to Russell DayLong

The LED bar under the license plate, not so well during the day. Likely better at night.

The HondaLine heated grip and the knuckle-buster wind guards work well; no heated gloves, and the hands stayed nice and warm, but not cooked.

The heated pants and jacket from www.NewEnough.com worked to perfection. Light weight, but plenty warm under a layer or two of gear.

Seems to be some distortion in the Cee Bailey screen while looking thru the middle of it towards the ground. I'll check it out on my first ride and give my impression.

 

[Phil Tarman]

Don,

What year is your son's Connie? I rode two '99s for 11 years and 160,000 miles. The NT is so much lighter-feeling; probably only (maybe) 100 pounds lighter, but it feels much, miuch lighter.

I've come to love the handling and braking and comfort. I don't often notice the deficit in power.

I also haven't noticed any distortion in my "old-style" Cee Bailey screen. It probably comes from that fancy flip. The headlight does look yellow compared to the Denalis as well, but it still punches a lot of light down the road on a dark night.

But you go ahead and be the headlight-changing pioneer for all of us. Figure out all the shortcuts and tricks and let us know what they are!

 

[Rotorhead]

He has an '86 and a '91

And you can betcha that my lights will be changed within 30 days.

 

[Phil Tarman]

We wait....with bated breath.

 

[DirtFlier]

I have the new style Cee Bailey (+2) with the "flip" and if there is any distortion, it isn't evident to me.
Most of the time, I ride with the windshield in the 3rd or 4th detent from the bottom so I'm mostly looking
over the windscreen and not through it. I have put it all the way up in the rain and didn't notice anything
weird.

 

[elizilla]

I don't think the stock headlights are very good at all. They're similar to my 1994 VFR, or my 1992 TDM. All are better than my 1984 V65 Sabre, but compare poorly to the V-Strom, which had the best headlights I've ever had the pleasure to ride behind. I was spoiled by that V-Strom, so it's a good thing I got the Denalis.

I will be interested to hear how your headlight mods work out!