Hey everyone! Wow, it sure seems like there are quite a few unsatisfied people.
Since there were quite a few of you that voiced concerns, I'll reply to all of you in a general sense but I sure hope you guys can see things from our point of view. Firstly, the group buy will be beginning sometime this week when we get the pricing and timeline all figured out. I'll probably make a new thread that will hopefully be stickied for the Generation 1 Group Buy so look for that sometime this week.
Anyhow, regarding the dissatisfaction: There absolutely was less "customer interaction" when building these bars for a very simple reason; Time. The gentleman whose bike we used, uses his Connie as a daily commuter vehicle. At first we were only supposed to have it for a single week but he was kind enough to allow us a few extra days. That alone was enough to limit the amount of "customer modifications" we could toy around with. You guys have to keep in mind that we had the later generation Connie in our facility for nearly a month. We had the earlier generation Connie for less than half the time which is obviously going to limit how many iterations of a bar we can test. Also, there was a bit less interaction because I was out with the flu for a few of those days unfortunately.
Regarding the design, we felt that the Canyon Cage for the 2010-2012 Connie was so popular that our best route would be to modify the bar to fit on the 2008-2009 Connie. Of course the fairings and lines of the bike are drastically different but that was taken into account and the lines of the bar itself were changed quite a bit. I honestly believe the Canyon Cage for the earlier generation bike is cooler looking in person than the Canyon Cage for the 2010-2012. It's far more aggressive looking to me although both bars go with each bike really well, I believe. Also, the reason we went with a smaller diameter bar was to match with the rear guards that we've already been making for the earlier generation Connie for years now. So, those of you who buy the Canyon Cage that already have the saddlebag guards or want the saddlebag guards, you'll be able to get a set that matches! This does not take away from the strength of the bar though as the wall thickness for both sets is the same. It's merely the overall diameter that's different by 1/8".
Now, for the option of drilling, we were again limited by time and the fact that we didn't have a spare fairing for a 2008-2009 Connie that we could drill into to actually make the prototype. I'm sure some of you are thinking: "Well, why not just mock up where the hole WOULD be and not actually drill into the guys fairing?" If we were to do that, there'd be no way to actually test the bar which we really weren't comfortable with. Also, when doing it that way, there'd be no way to verify that the bar fit properly without actually drilling through the fairing and mounting the part completely. Perhaps if we had more time, this would be an option we could explore but it seemed as though the majority did not want to deal with drilling anyway.
Based on the very positive reaction we had from the gentleman whose bike we borrowed, we feel confident that most of you will be pleased with the bars. The guy even went as far as to tell us he thought the bike looked better with the bars on there than without! I do wish that we had the bike for a longer period of time so we could have explored a few more options but I truly think we did very well given the time constraint.
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