So my friend who has a Ducati Monster has bar end mirrors and asked him how the were..."I love them!", he said. "Hmmm...", I thought to myself, "Nah, I couldn't get used to them; it was enough of an adjusment for me to go from fixed mirrors on a fairing to bar mounted mirrors". That's what happened back in October's "Malibu Ride" that I was able to attend. Fast forward to last Friday...
...I was riding home from work in typical moderate freeway traffic. I'm going about 45 mph with the flow of traffic and buzzing by me at around 55 was a V-Strom which startled me. The guy waved to me as he passed. Now this guy wasn't a squid, he wasn't speeding, he followed edicate perfectly, in fact, if I would've seen him, I would've gone to the left of the HOV lane to give him some actually passing room instead of him having to wait for some space between vehicles--I just didn't see him because my mirrors are crap.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't use the mirrors to decide whether-or-not I'm going to make a lane change but it sure would be nice to at least see what's coming up just because...well...
it's nice to know.
So I went to Cycle Gear and bought a pair of Motrax bar end mirrors. So if you're considering some bar end mirrors, here are the results of the ones that I installed (they still need a little more adjusting):
Taken from the tail of the bike:
Right Mirror from sitting position; I tried to re-create what I would see while riding. I know that my hand isn't on the grip but what I did was hold the grip and then stay at the same angle as I took the picture:
Left Mirror riding position:
Need I say more? End of post.