I have managed to break both my stock handguards dropping the bike. I was looking to get more sturdy ones that wrap around and attach at the bar end and on the handlebar itself with a metal bar and then the plastic guard fits onto that. But I was looking at the Barkbusters site and found this

http://www.barkbusters.net/images/st...ent_advice.pdf

which basically means their bars do not fit without drilling.

Does that mean there is no hand guard available that is of the wrap around type without drilling or other modding?

Well you can use the original bolt instead of drilling the hole bigger, but i dont know how well eill you be able to fit them on this way. Or you can get a set of Acerbis rally brush hand guards or something similar with high wind deflectors, no drilling required they can be bolted on with the original bolt.


With the deflectors mounted:


They are all plastic but still way better quality than stock ones. You will have to get a mounting kit separately. I had a similar set with turn signals on my previous bike and when i sold them I took them off and have them on KLE now.

Here is the picture of the ones i have:


How they are mounted:


I had to cut a tab of Acerbis wind deflectors to make them fit on these hand guards, I have also ground the hole of the hand guards a few milimeters to accept the bar end weights. But otherwise they are a straight bolt on.

This is how they look on the bike:


Over all cost was round 60€ with hand guards, wind deflectors and mounting kit. I am very happy with them, i have dropped the bike before and the only thing that got broken was the plastic part that held the turn signal in(i have glued them in now.) and they provide a good protection from wind with those deflectors on.

Hope it helps!

Cheers, Ghosty!


P.S.: If you really need a aluminum backbone hand guard, check zeta:

__________________
->Honda XL125V Varadero '08 sold
->Kawasaki KLE 500 '05 riding it, like I stole it

Thanks for the reply

Checking out the various options.

Find some machine shop, that will make you a spacer 10-12 mm thick (I prefer 12 to have some tolerance) with a 21,7mm external diameter and 5mm hole in it, to put the bolt through. You can also cut your original handlebar weight, but I wouldn't do it in case if you'd like to get back to stock.

You can then easily fit any kind of handlebar. I went that route, still don't know how will M5 screw withstand the motorcycle fall (haven't installed it yet, will do it this weekend), but from my calculations, class 10.9 M5 screw should be able to tolerate static tension of 1900kg. Of course this is theoretical value, and will be much lower since the force won't act along the screw but rather at 90* to it, yet still I thik that these 200kg that this bike can put on it is not enough to break it.

Besides it's better to let the screw break than to damage the handbars i suppose. It still will absorb a huge amount of impact energy.

Here are the technical drawings of spacer and special bolt that I made for myself. The bolt is a typical M8 DIN 7991 bolt, turned from certain pint into M5 (hope it's proper english term for it, I mean a kind of rotational grinding). This kind of bolts is attached to most handguards, but usually in 8.8 or lower strenght class. I would recommend buying 10.9 since you will weaken it A LOT by making it M5

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I went with the Barkbuster they seem to be sturdy

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Based on claims and measurements, I bought the Polisport Sharp handguards

SHARP - Without Mounting Kit

but they are frustratingly about 1 cm too short.

EDIT - see post below

Success, Busters Motorbike accessories, Venom hand guards

Venom Reinforced Hand Guards Black

They were £23 off eBay and whilst a bit scruffy in that not all of the metal is painted, one of the bolts will not go on as its thread is faulty and the plastic has rough edges, they appear very strong and fit easily with lots of space for levers.

I WOULD NOW NOT RECOMMEND THE ABOVE HANDGUARDS FROM BUSTERS

Twice now the bike has fallen over whilst stationary and off road onto grass. On both occasions the handguard bent and the second time it snapped off taking the valve at the top of the suspension fork with it.

They are not strong enough to cope with even a basic fall.