Help with more comfort for a taller rider.
 

Hi,

I've had my 996 for about a year now and i'd like to make the riding position a bit more comfortable. I'm just over 6 ft and 50 years old!

Have any tall riders out there had a positive result from fitting helli bars, and/or adjustable rearsets?

Another area is the screen. I'd like to fit one that will help reduce the wind blast, but on my Fireblade a double bubble actually made this worse and i fitted a Zero Gravity sports touring screen in the end.

Thanks in advance.
Simon

A corse racing screen is good, about £35 off ebay, and I had the cyclecat adjustable bar risers and they made a huge difference, but I aint of 6' ;) :lol:

Corse screen makes sense, not sure rearsets will improve> Back and up is the norm with rearsets. Also be aware thet bar risers may cause bar/clutch/brake/ lever interference with upper fairing,

One thing that is easy to do is to move the brake & clutch levers into a more downward angle onthe bars, you need to remove or cut off the pins that lock them into the position that they are in, then turn them around the bars a bit till they are at a more confertable angle for your wrists before tightening them back up.

I have done this on both of the 748's I have had, it makes town riding less of an ache on the wrists.


Chris:burn:

Thanks for the advice. I'll check out the screen and try adjusting the control levers first before looking at bar risers.

cheers
Simon

Might some kind soul post a link to a corse screen? I'm considering the same option but ain't exactly sure what I'm looking for.

Check out - Laminar Lip :)

Fast By Ferracci Handle Bar clamps have less of an angle which may help with bar position
Rearsets with the two mounting points and the pegs on eccentric cams should give more leg room, although I have known someone to fit footrest risers for the standard pegs the wrong way so that they lowered the pegs, that gave them more leg room.

Not sure if Wulfie has any mods as he's a tall guy, makes his 748 look like a mini-moto
James (aka 007) is also tall and seems to get on well with his 996, not sure what mods he has made if any

Go for something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=290599990619



Just search for "ducati screen" on ebay and there's loads of options and styles.
You want a "double-bubble" or race/corse screen. There's a couple of different styles and different options on clear, smoked, dark, etc, so take your pick!

I'm 6 foot tall and found a screen like this made a big difference on my 748, as it pushed the wind over my head instead of it hitting me in the face & shoulders. I have a slightly different shape (will try and find a picture!) but very similar to this one.

yep, that looks about right like mine. It was about £30 from memory plus a bit of p&p and is ace

Here's a pic of my screen

:lol: Cheers Kevin,

No I haven't made any mods at all, I am 6ft 4in so pretty tall, and I'm no spring chicken at 43. I suffered initially with discomfort across the shoulders and wrist ache too, but I have managed to work most of it out by altering the way I sit on the bike and how I ride, might sound weird but it works.
The biggest thing I changed was to relax a lot more riding the bike, bend your arms and basically flop onto the tank (or that's what it feels like) and have a light a grip as possible on the bars, sometimes I only use the throttle with 2 fingers which helps loads with the shoulder and kneck aches and pains.
Funnily enough I had a Fireblade previously and also fitted a double bubble in the hope that it would deflect the wind over the top, but instead of hitting me in the chest it hit me straight in the face, which makes me believe a screen won't be the answer. I always ride on the balls of my feet which actually increases the severity of the bend in the leg, but if you push your arse right back to the stop it kinda helps too. Other things I do, clutchless up shifts as much as possible to reduce the number of times I have pull the clutch in, get into neutral as often as possible at traffic lights etc and sit straight up for as long as I can, ride round towns not through them and when on a long ride absolutely hammer it so you get there quicker :D just joking
Recently ridden to the welsh coast and back in 1 day, with no issues that was nearly 10 hours in the saddle.
Hope some of that helps, works for me

Cheers

Chris

My Mate Adrian who raced my bikes at the TT although a couple of inches under 6' always rode with a thick piece of foam stuck to the back of the tank to help push him back in the seat, helped him deal with 4 laps of the Island with average lap speeds of around 115mph so about 80 minutes flat out. So probably works for some people

Thanks for the all the advice here, there are clearly a number of things that i can try. Obviously i'll try the cheapest first :-)

cheers
Simon