D-Shark,
That thing looks kinda cool to me, and you're right; wait til you have to run your shield up for an upcoming dust storm, or down for a fogged up faceshield- it'll look BEAUTIFUL to you then!
God bless,
srkeet
D-Shark,
That thing looks kinda cool to me, and you're right; wait til you have to run your shield up for an upcoming dust storm, or down for a fogged up faceshield- it'll look BEAUTIFUL to you then!
God bless,
srkeet
Future users of this system will benefit from the 'test and tune' going on right now by D-shark and Bruce.
As can be imagined, it's a bit more involved than "slap it on and go" if you want the best results.
The 'reduced wind noise' is really a big draw for me. I currently run a 'Baggershield', and without the top shield 'up', the wind noise in my Shoei J-Cruise is pretty bad. Not really getting 'rough' air, but lots of 'high-velocity' air. 'Thunder' noise
The J-Cruise is a 3/4 helmet. I have a full-face RF-1100 which can be quiet on other bikes with all the vents closed, but haven't tried it yet as it's just now getting down into the 70's.
Keep us posted guys, and by all means, if you feel you have it pretty well dialed in, pics and descriptions of 'where its at' would be very appreciated!
Bruce, looking forward to more of your input. Did you get the Dark Grey? After thinking about it more I think I'm going to swap out my 16" for the 11". That will give me adjustment from 11 to 14 inches in height. Do you have the stock seat? Just wondering since Mark was so far off on the shield height for me? Just seems a waste not to be able to use the vertical adjustment built into the brackets. If I get a chance today I'll try to test out Marks claim that raising the shield too much reduces it's effectiveness. Since I'm already looking through what I have I'll just run it to the top of the 3" adjustment and see what happens.
In the end maybe I'll end up with two shields (11" for solo riding and 13" for two up)? Shields are easy to swap out, just 4 screws. This weekend my girlfriend will get a chance to see if the Madstad helps her at the passenger location? She rides herself but when riding two up with me loves the comfort of the F6B. I had the 11" Baggershield previously and she says there was just as much wind with that as on the back of my Road King and Heritage Softail.
One reason I went with Madstad was to avoid the curved top edge on the competitions shield which is not optically clear. Just thought that might be too distracting when the height is set just below your line of sight. Also I thought the Madstad brackets with height and rake adjustment looked better than the competition with height and rake adjustment.
In the photos I posted the shield is set at 55 degrees using an angle gauge I have for accuracy. The stock shield on mine was almost right at 45 degrees. So you can see that 55 to 60 degrees does not stand upright that much compared to the front fairing. The photos of the Goldwing on the Madstad sight appear to have the shield adjusted well beyond the 60 degree target which looks a lot more funky?
The brackets came assembled so that there is a 2-5/8" gap between the base shield and top shield which seems like a big gap??? The brackets have multiple holes which allow that gap to be reduced by moving the hardware to different holes in the brackets (these can be seen in my closeup photo). So the adjustment possibilities are almost infinite which is good and bad.
Scotrod, I've learned over the years on my other bikes that for a tall guy like me I've got to be able to get my feet stretched out in front and down low on long rides. This distributes weight from my rear end to my thighs making a huge difference. Standard highway pegs are simply mounted too high for me so my thighs are not really supported by the seat. Kind of like sitting on a bar stool that is too short, my knees are too high and all the weight is on my tailbone.
The Mick-O-Pegs really get the job done for me. Getting on the pegs takes some practice but I can now transition to the pegs without having to look for then while doing 80 on the interstate. When on the pegs I can fully extend and stretch my legs. I have the KA model which go down and out and are recommended for taller riders. They have a bunch of different styles so choosing is not easy.
I also have the Kuryakyn Rider Mini Boards which help a lot compared to the stock Rider Footpegs. The Mini Boards are a bit lower than stock and allow a lot more fore and aft placement of your feet. Seems like I'll ride about 45 minutes on the Mini Boards and then go to the Mick-O-Pegs for about Five minutes and back to the Mini Boards. Seems like 5 minutes on the Mick-O-Pegs allows me to stretch my legs a back so that when I go back to the Mini Boards I'm good for another 45 minutes.
Just a quick response here on a couple of items. I got the light gray but think I will switch to the medium or dark gray. You say that you are a tall guy and I think that the 13 inch may be better than the 11 which Mark said would be for guys shorter than me. I'm 5' 9-10". I have a Rick Mayer seat which places me about 1 inch above stock.
Regarding Mark saying that raising the shield too much reduces it's effectiveness. That's because it allows too much air flow up between the shield and the base. He was not referring to the height of the top of the shield. He was referring to the height of the bottom of the shield. Look on this thread at the picture of the installation on a Road Glide or look at the GL1800 pictures on the Madstad site. The shield is fairly close to the bottom of the base. Using an 11 inch shield, you'd have to slide it higher to get the top up where you want it. The bottom of the shield would be quite a ways up the base. At least that's my interpretation of what he said. Not that I'm any expert. I may have misunderstood but I think that's what Mark was saying.
I haven't tried the shield with a passenger yet and would appreciate you sharing your experience on that.
Attachment 2660
Just testing,,,:
Attachment 2659
Attachment 2661
Attachment 2662
Hmm,
Would it be possible to go to a 'lower hole' on the base bracket to 'tighten up' the gap up front while keeping the same rake?
(Y'all might have to cut me some slack as I've only looked at 1-2 of the MadStad 'robo-bracket' downloads to get a general grasp of how they work. Quite sure there is more than 1 form of robo bracket.)
OK, from my house it's a straight 4 mile shot East to the interstate (we don't have curves in Illinois). I made three runs to and from the interstate, each round trip 8 miles.
First run was with the shield in the full up position set at 55 degrees, got up to 80 mph at times. I did not notice any difference from my ride yesterday with the shield in the full down position. Adjustment range from full up to full down is about 3-1/4 inches
Second run was with the shield in the full down position set at 55 degrees, got up to 80 mph at times. I did not notice any real difference from the first run. Stood up on the pegs to see how far I could look over the shield before getting into the wind. The shield was producing a nice bubble allowing me to look well over the shield with no real loss in wind protection compared to sitting and looking through the shield.
Third run was with the shield once again in the full up position set at 55 degrees, got up to 80 mph at times. Stood up on the pegs to see how far I could look over the shield before getting into the wind. I have to say with the shield all the way up I think the bubble of calm air was actually a little higher. I certainly couldn't detect any reduction in windshield effectiveness.
Now it's possible that a shorter 11" shield in the highest bracket position will not channel the air up and over as effectively as the 16" shield I tested here??? For me given this test I think it's worth it for me to give the 11 inch shield a try.
Scotrod, yes it looks to me like the shield could be adjusted up to about 1 inch closer to the base shield by moving the Robo Bracket rake bolts to different holes provided in the brackets. With my current shield all the way down, the gap between the bottom of the shield and faring is about 2 inches. The distance between the center cut-out and the base shield is about 3 inches (in other words the center cut-out is well above the faring itself. When I raise the shield all the way up then there is a consistent 3 inch gap from side to side between the top shield and base shield (so there is a bigger gap to let more air in in the full up position).
It's interesting that in my test having the shield in the highest position I was unable to detect any loss in shield effectiveness. Point being increasing the gap between the base and top shield in my test had no obvious negative effect. I don't know how much actual first hand riding experience the guys a Madstad have had with the Goldwing? The Wings have a hell of a front faring compared to most bikes Madstad have their shields on. Could be the Madstad shield behaves a little differently when mounted on such a big fairing ???