Kawasaki Concours Forum
The C10, aka Kawasaki Concours - The Original => Accessories and Modifications - C10 => Topic started by: YoDoc on May 15, 2011, 10:02:08 PM
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I bought a 2003, and it has a Cee Bailey on it. I know these are nice, but my fricken head takes a pounding at speed, man. The lip comes up to about my mouth, as I ride very upright, and do not like looking through a windshield. It this thing too tall or too short? Or is it the lip that makes it awful? I don't mind wind, I used to ride a naked Sportster. The thing I don't like is my head getting tossed around and that makes me feel like the bike is unstable.
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What size windshield do you have? I just bought a 25.5" Cee Bailey that comes to my upper lip - I have risers on the bars. I look over the windshield but there is still a lot of windshield to look through. On my first ride I found no buffeting at all. My previous windshield was stock and much shorter and there was a lot of buffeting. Don't know why you are having problems - though maybe the difference is what you and I mean by "at speed".
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By "at speed" I mean 70-90 mph, which is what traffic runs on the freeways here. I think it's the 25.5, but I don't know for sure, because I didn't buy it. Maybe it's just something I'm not use to, as this is my first sport bike.
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I would get a taller one so that you are looking through the flat part at the top. I think that's what the cee bailey is designed for.
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I look over my Cee Baily and love it. I probably ordered it too short. See if you can get a stock shield to try. That lip really send the air up and over.
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Maybe it's not the windshield... I rode bare dome today (stupid, but I just quit smoking, one thing at a time, yeah?) and the buffeting wasn't nearly as bad. Maybe it's the smaller head surface area, maybe it's just my helmet, what with the stupid vents everywhere to catch air...
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Maybe it's not the windshield... I rode bare dome today (stupid, but I just quit smoking, one thing at a time, yeah?) and the buffeting wasn't nearly as bad. Maybe it's the smaller head surface area, maybe it's just my helmet, what with the stupid vents everywhere to catch air...
What type of helmet were you wearing when the buffeting was at its worst?
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Are you sure that it is a Cee Bailey and not a stocker? Both have a flip at the top but the stocker is more pronounced and caused a lot of disturbance to the air around the head/helmet. The proper height of a shield should be from 1 to 3 inches below your line of sight while riding down the road normally depending on preference.
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It says Cee Bailey on it, and has that odd vent in it. However, while riding today, I did also notice that the vent is lopsided? Not much, and surely that's not why my bike feels unstable?
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Also, it's an HJC. I'm not sure about the model. It's covered in vents and shiny graphics...
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Also, it's an HJC. I'm not sure about the model. It's covered in vents and shiny graphics...
Full Face, 3/4, 1/2 Helmet?
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Oh... I'm dumb. Full face. Shield all the way down.
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It says Cee Bailey on it, and has that odd vent in it. However, while riding today, I did also notice that the vent is lopsided? Not much, and surely that's not why my bike feels unstable?
Sounds like a CB sometimes their vents are not quite perfect but that does not cause any issues. If this is your first fully faired bile you have to become accustomed to the new dynamics of it. Also you need to check and correct the tire pressures according to the manual. What kind of tires? Worn or incorrect tires do suck.... Same goes for getting the suspension setting dialed in. What about the black foot scoops which way are they pointed they too cause the bike to act squirrelly. Are you dealing with just head buffeting or is the bike generally not stable on the road? Big trucks can make the bike dance in their dirty air especially if any of the above are out of sorts.
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Oh... I'm dumb. Full face. Shield all the way down.
Try shield up.... Mine is calmer with shield open to partially closed.
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Can you measure it from the bottom to the top?
Sounds like its just a hair too short for you.
How tall are you and how big is the shield? CBs site has some basic ideas for shield height...
I had a similar issue on one of my old bikes. Took the next size larger shield to fix it. Was nice and calm with no helmet, helmet on and I got a lot of turbulence catching the top of it.
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Try shield up.... Mine is calmer with shield open to partially closed.
I have found the same thing to be true. Helmets and windshields interact a lot. I have a Shoei RF1000 and I put on a Rifle 'shield shortly after I bought the Connie. I trimmed it several times to get the height right for me. I'm 6'1" and I like to look over the top of the 'shield rather than through it. There is a noticeable difference in noise and turbulence depending on the helmet face shield position. Closed is noisy, reverberant and a little turbulent, open is smooooooth and quiet. I ALWAYS wear ear plugs and impact resistant eye shields. When cutting the Rifle 'shield I also trimmed off the top corners quite a bit mostly for looks, but I am convinced that it helps smooth the airflow around the upper edges. I recut the old Connie 'shield to fit onto the Wee-Strom and took about 2 inches of the upper lip off and it is now very smooth on that bike and works great. I'm of the opinioin that the top lip is a large contributor to the turbulence issue, if your head is in the "burble" area. Pics of both installations below for your perusal:
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This is my first bike with anything but my ego in front of the handlebars. The tires are not the original tires, but they are OEM spec Dunlops. The tire pressure seems fine, and the foot scoops (which I hate) are faced forward. I may just take them off. The turbulence does seem to just me the top of my head, but the whole bike still seems squirrley. I really need to get it out of town to see if anything changes. I don't know how many of you have ridden through Dallas-Fort Worth area, but I have never seen more consistently, god-awful, crap-tastic roads anywhere in my life, and I've been to Iraq twice, LOL.
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This is my first bike with anything but my ego in front of the handlebars. The tires are not the original tires, but they are OEM spec Dunlops. The tire pressure seems fine, and the foot scoops (which I hate) are faced forward. I may just take them off. The turbulence does seem to just me the top of my head, but the whole bike still seems squirrelly. I really need to get it out of town to see if anything changes. I don't know how many of you have ridden through Dallas-Fort Worth area, but I have never seen more consistently, god-awful, crap-tastic roads anywhere in my life, and I've been to Iraq twice, LOL.
Don't think you've been to Pennsylvania yet... The only thing worse are the railroad tracks.. Now about those Dunflops, I was going to wait until I wore-out the last set
on my C-10, and I had purchased a pair of the last of the Pilot GT's. But the damn dancing from the Dunflops wore my patience too thin, so I finally changed them. Night(mare) to daylight!! I am FIRMLY planted, and solid confidence in Connie has been granted to me! I trust you will find a much better tire that will give you a much better ride than
you have. Oh, and WELCOME!!
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Well, then, new tires it is! I had heard that the OEM's were awful, but I didn't think they were THAT awful. And about bad roads, I have a buddy in south Louisiana who rides a 2011 Triumph Speed Triple. The roads down there are so bad, (and this is his first bike) that it knocked his kickstand down! 40 mph and suddenly scraping noises and the engine cuts out! You know the road is bad when it can actually turn off your bike... LOL.
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My 2 cents. You say you don't mind wind, so based on that I would cut the windshield down until your face is fully in the slip stream thus unaffected by the buffeting. There is no perfect world here. It's all a trade off. For no wind bliss you are going to be looking through the windshield. Other than that, you are going to be getting "some" buffeting or full wind. As for the bike wobble, If you are out there amongst traffic and dirty air you are going to get more unstable wobble although not bad at all in "clean" air. Funny thing is for me, when I recently put on new "Avon" tires my unstable/wobble in dirty air became much more pronounced in dirty air than when I had the well worn original Dunlops on. The Avons I got are simply wonderful in the turns but much more unstable going down the slab. :o Maybe after I wear them in a bit that will change. If it doesn't, I will probably try something different next go round.
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This is some good info. Thanks guys!
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This is my first bike with anything but my ego in front of the handlebars.
Good decision. My ego hanging out there was gonna get me killed. I've grown a bit more tame now that I've got a ST machine. :popcorn:
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Well, my only previous (owned) bike was a Harley Sportster. Not real "sporty", you know... but it was a great bike, and I'll probably own another some day. I just never put a windshield on it. Well, I did once, and I hated it, and then accidentally broke it, so I never had much experience. This Connie is definitely the "Sportiest" ride I've ever had. I've been riding it more (I've only had it three weeks) and I think I just needed to get used to the whole fairing thing. It bugs me less and less now.
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Since we're on the fairing thing, I also have a question (sorry for the hi jack)
I have noted that the rifle and some of the cee bailey shields have a NACA style duct near the base. Does this help with cooling on hot days, and helmet fogging on cooler days? Differences in noise levels? If any of you have had experience with both the vented, non vented, pro's and cons I'd like to here them.
I'm 5'8 with a 31" inseam. (yea, yea, tmi)
I currently have a 21.5" targa windshield with some buffetting/ wind noise.
Like Tcro said, if my visor is open it's quieter (and cooler) but the thing is always blowing shut!
Thought maybe a vent in the bottom would help but i don't know.
thnx
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Well, I dont know if Im much help or not, but I prefer less wind, which means a windshield of decent proportions.
My Z1000 was naked, no screen really to speak of, but it had a small deflector that kept the bugs off my chest.
Went from that to a VTX1800 and a NC Switchblade 2-up shield with lowers and man was that nice on the highway!
I loved that I could take it off in a matter of seconds for around town though.
Currently, Ive got a Rifle base on the way, and plan to make the upper shield from a GW1200 shield, similar to the mega-shield Ive seen in pics that someone else made, and also plan to add the GW vent to it as well...saw it gave nice airflow on hot days on that particular set-up...hoping it works for me too!
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The vent relieves some of the negative pressure from the cockpit area. What this does is reduce windscreen bounce, reduce buffeting, and reduce back flow. If you don't know what back flow is, you probably don't ride sans helmet much, and kudos for that. Back flow is air flowing "back to front", from behind you, into the cockpit area. This is the same reason a pretty girl's long hair will blow in front of her face in a convertible with the top down.