IMHO, moving the guard down really does make it look out of place on this bike. If you look at the before and after pictures, you will notice that the guards are essentially the same shape except for the height of the horizontal bars. By simply moving it up, it looks 100x better.
I know these modification are being done to remain "compatible" with the rear guards, but would it be possible to sell the newly designed guards as "incompatible" with the rear guards? That, or look into modifying the rear guards so that they work with the new design.
Just a thought.
The reason for moving the bar down was fairing protection, not so it goes better with the rear guards. The size of the "rectangle" that the lower and upper horizontal bars create was what I was tinkering with to go better with the rear set of guards. The location of the guards on the bike was changed to protect the lower section of the fairing as well as the brake pedal and shifter lever. With the design that was higher on the fairing, the shifter was in jeopardy as well as the lower section of the fairing which is unacceptable.
I agree based on bars that stand out so much from the color behind (like the mockups against a black bike), but I believe this will disappear (or at least, be less noticeable) with bars that more match the color of the plastic lowers that are behind it. Black bars will blend better with the dark lowers. It's a compromise, but I can live with it on my bike.
The matte black bars do a pretty good job of disappearing on nearly every color bike except for the really "bright" colors like the silver. Most of the bikes still have quite a bit of that flat black plastic that the guards really match well with. It'll be easier to see what I mean once the guards are powdercoated although we're working on a black bike so of course they'll disappear well.
Keep on fighting for the design Ryan! Bottom line is that putting these bars on the bike is optional and costs a non-trivial amount of money. As consumers with other options, I suspect that many of us won't buy the MC bars unless they are functional AND pleasing to the eye. You make them like I think you are planning to, I will be buying a front and rear set. Your intervention will generate more revenue for MC Enterprises. Hope the owner realizes this!
I totally agree and I completely understand that people wouldn't want to put something on their bike that isn't both functional and good-looking. Heck, I wouldn't want to put anything on my bike that's not both functional and looks good and I expect most of you guys feel the same way! This is a big part of the reason I'm fighting so hard to keep tinkering with this design until we have something that really works well and looks good doing it. Although, I understand I really can't please everyone and I'd be naive to think otherwise but there's no harm in trying!
Maybe it's the picture but the lower bar looks like it has a tighter bend (which looks good) then the top bar and it doesn't look Parallel. Also the top bar attaching just or partly above the bolt through tube looks odd. If it where just a bit lower and attached to that tube with the bolt it might look like it belongs there. I'm glad you got your way, I would have never bought the prior "final design."
The lower bar does have a slightly tighter bend but only by a degree or two, literally. We did that to try and compensate for the upper bar going with the fairing vents but apparently it didn't work out like we thought it would. I'll try fixing that radius so they're identical and see how it looks. I get what you're saying about where those points come together, too. I think, though, if we were to make the upper horizontal bar meet directly at that mounting point that the rectangle may then be too skinny or thin. I believe we had a set up similar to this before but for some reason it didn't look right. I can always try and see how it looks with this lower set up though!
People keep saying that, but that is only true for the black or dark bikes. On the lighter bikes, like my silver, they are not going to disappear if they are black. Quite the contrary. Before, when it was mostly above the black areas, chrome or silver bars would have blended very well, overall. Now that it is lower, much more of it is across the bottom black fairing, making a silver/chrome bar much more visible down low. And trying to have multicolor will look freaky in other ways. So I can't quite "win" with any color, although I do believe matching the upper fairing would be more important.
This is one reason I am nowhere near as happy as before, about it being moved down. Of course, it is irrelevant... if it needs to be lower to protect things, then that has to happen. I am just trying to point out that for some of us, the bars are not going to magically disappear, so the aesthetic design is more important than for some other people.
The black color bars actually tend to blend in relatively well with that flat black plastic that's on the lower portion of the bike regardless of the color of the rest of the bike. Although I agree that the black bars look better on the darker color bikes. Don't you have an '08-'09 though? We'll be making a completely new set of bars for that bike as this bar for the 2010-2012 won't be fitting on the 2008-2009s.
It is a definite improvement. It might be a trick of the angle of the photograph, but to me it still looks like the top bar is not perfectly parallel to the bottom. The top bar is set at the correct angle to match the vents and should not be moved. It APPEARS that the bottom bar has to come up just a bit in the rear, and the top bar vertical leg has to be shortened just a bit to make the parallel. Again, it could be an optical illusion.....
Tell me I am wrong and I *might* believe you...
At first I couldn't quite understand what you meant but after glaring at the latest set of photos for the last few minutes I finally realized what you meant. I'll talk to Armando about slightly raising the rear end of the lower bar so it's perfectly parallel to the upper bar which currently matches the vents. Thanks for catching this, Maxtog!
Ryan you are the man! Thanks for sticking up for us. I like what you have.
One thing you might try is to raise the 2nd bar up a little to allow for a little larger tilted rectangle as shown in picture B. To me it would visually look like the bar would protect a little more, also raising the 2nd bar up away from all the angle changes happening between the vane angles and the beginning of the black fairing piece and raises the radius up into cleaner territory to relate to upper radius of the fairing vent opening. The Concours is a pretty large bike and the larger tilted rectangle is more proportional to the Concours. That's just me, what does everybody else think?
Black is the color for me. My MCE crash bars take alot of abuse in my garage and scratches are easy to take care of with a little black spray paint and a paint brush and it looks just great for a minimal exspense. My concours is for riding I don't like to polish chrome when I can be riding.
Gordon
Thanks, Gordon! I do like the look of that change if we didn't have the rear bars to take into consideration as well. It seems as though the majority of people are going to pair the Canyon Cage with the small rear saddle bag guards so I kinda have to take them into consideration a bit. I think widening that rectangle would simply be an aesthetics move and wouldn't really do much to improve the amount of protection. With that said I think widening that rectangle would improve the looks of the Canyon Cage itself but when paired with the rear guards, I think it will look a tad awkward. I think the size of that rectangle as we have it now really looks awesome when paired with the small rear guards as the radius' match and the openings are the same size.
Ryan,
Just to get some pressure off your shoulders. You can keep the bike until May before Mother Day. Got to take the Mama out for her weekend on the bike. That way you can have something we all like and want. I ratter wait a little longer . Than getting her back and not liking/wanting the final product. Everything done slowly is always better. The more input and feedback the better it will be.
Phew, thank you Zulu! You've seriously been a massive help in this entire process and if it weren't for you these bars never would have been made! I don't think we'll need the bike THAT long as we're quickly getting them finished up but I can't say enough about your patience and generosity! Thank you, thank you!
Zulu, awesome and so generous. Thanks!!!
Ryan when it comes time for gen one bikes I'd like to see #8 the focus, our lines are more angular and #8 just looked bad a$$.
We'll definitely be going with a slightly different design for the '08-'09s as the lines of the bike are quite a bit different. Don't worry, we'll make it look good!
Thats cool...I was not changing the radius size, just the straight lengths. If you made the rectangle larger somebody might stick some lugage in it.
Gordon
Yes, you're correct the radius' are the same. I just misspoke when I said radius'. I meant that the opening there is the same as the small rear guards so they go together really well. I'll see about opening that spot up a bit but I think it'll look a bit awkward when paired with the small rear guards. Granted, it does look great that way by itself when not taking the smaller guards into consideration.
