I might have exaggerated a bit about the gruelling part. I'm going from Texas to Arkansas. Spend two full days in Arkansas. I don't know exactly where; others in the group are organizing. But I was told AR is beautiful riding. I plan to spend two days to ride there and two back. Most people can probably get there in one day, but my neck and back will probably kill me.
I was disappointed by the selection of windshield for NT. They're all pretty much the same, just taller and a bit wider than stock. They don't seem to lean back enough. So, I took it upon myself to modify the existing stock shield configuration. I took some leftover steel stock, drill somes holes, and bend the stocks to an angle. This became an extended bracket for the windshield. I know it looks very ghetto, but it seems pretty sturdy. The holes on the homemade bracket don't match the holes on the windshield very well; so there's some stress on the shield. Since this is just a prototype, I didn't want to spend too much time perfecting the holes. When I was done, I immediately took it out for a spin down the interstate. To my surprise, this configuration works extremely well. When I say well, I really mean it because I'm extremely sensitive to turbulance and vibrations. I wear high prescription eyeglasses; any slight vibration on my head/helmet is amplified by my glasses and I get headaches after a while. So I was very surprised this mod is working so well, after only investing one hour or two to make the sorry looking brackets. The bracket extends 4-inches along the direction of the rail. There's also considerable tilt in the shield now. I think tilting the shield to as close to the head as possible is good. There's still plenty of distance between my head and the top of the shield. When I make a better bracket next time, I think I'll put even more tilt. You can see the tilt on the photo below. Notice I have the Helibar riser, which puts the handlebar about 4-inches back and up. The giant hole on the bottom of the windshield, to my surprise, doesn't cause any problem. This hole in stock configuration did give me a lot of turbulant air to my face. I expected to have to cover it up with plexiglass or something, but the air thru the hole goes straight up and dissapate somehow. So I left the hole uncovered. I guess the real question is how much wear and tear this is putting on the rails, which I read is made out of plastic. The sorry bracket has some flexibility to it; this property should relieve some of the load on the rail. The shield isn't even close to flopping around. I think it'll hold for a long while.
If the rails do break, I will remove the rails, make beefier brackets with the help of my machinist friend, and permanently mount the bracket on the fairing. This is probably overkill for most people. I'm unusually sensitive to turbulance and vibration.
