VRX Roadster Customizing

We've had our motorbikes for almost two months, and they've been tons of fun already. We bought used, though, and, in a demonstration of our trust in Japanese customer service, sight-unseen. We did our research, and had pictures from the dealer, but that was it. There was a 30 day warranty on parts and labor, but it was quicker and easier to handle the little things ourselves. So far my work has been just customization, but Tracy's has developed symptoms severe enough to go to a local professional: Further updates as conditions warrant!

The previous owner of my Honda VRX didn't change much with the running gear (all seems solid!), but he (she?) converted the bike to a bobbed, lowered, Sportster style. Although it began life as the very dark 'Dark Edition', almost all remaining shiny parts were blacked out or removed. As I received it:

To make the bike useful for shopping or overnight trips, I needed saddlebags. These are common and most bikes have no special concern with fitment, but mine presented a special set of obstacles:

• The twin 'XR' style pipes on the right side leave almost no room for a bag, especially not a flammable soft one. I immediately found, and bought, an alternative 2 into 1 header and a low, straight back bullet-type single silencer. This would change the look of the bike, but would allow symmetrical bags. Once I fell in love with the sound of the XR pipes though, I might not get around to changing them.


• The 'bobbing' process dictates removal of everything not directly contributing to speed, so the fender rail covers were removed, and the fender 'bobbed' to almost nothing. The missing covers meant the turn signals lost there factory placement, and the customizer mounted the signals low and short. The signals were squarely where any bag would need to be, and so needed another relocating. Usually this is solved by moving the blinkers all the way back to the tail-light / license plate area, but that had already been bobbed, and the remaining steel wasn't going to handle any more weight at all. To solve the problem, I bought (again on auction) used fender rail covers. The only ones in existence were chrome, but maybe brighter is better. The extant blinkers were horrible, and mismatched front and rear to make it worse. I needed blinkers that had a narrower profile than those plastic monsters, so I found a cheap new pair locally. Mounting these was a piece of cake, but the new blinkers made the relay sound terrible and blink slowly. The new front blinkers also went on well, but now the fuse blew every time I tried to use them. I had assumed that the extant units had stock 23W bulbs, but the new ones had 10W and 15W. Switching all bulbs to 23W (a trip downtown on the weekend) burned up my spare fuses (another trip downtown). Finally I checked the relay, and discovered that it was a weak aftermarket unit, and the extant bulbs in the ugly blinkers had been dumbed down to 10W to match. I ordered a solid-state relay 1W-100W which could handle any load, and combination of bulbs, and still blink at the legal 85 'blinks per minute'. I pre-wired the harness for it in my room, and it slipped right onto the original mounting backet. Whew!

With the blinkers working, all bright 23W, and shiny chrome, I was able to consider the bag mounting, and decided to keep my harmonious pipes, and use large bag on the left and a small bag on the right. The trade off in storage space should be worth it, I hope. More on my bag mounting adventures soon!