I don't like the look of a big rear fender, and I couldn't justify almost $200 for the one company that makes a tail tidy for this bike so I decided to chop mine off and make my own license plate bracket. Here's where I cut. Here's the little bracket I made. It's aluminum so it weighs about the same as the plate itself. I know that with this setup, there's no white light on the plate, but I very rarely ride at night, so I'm not very worried. I then fabricated a couple 'L' brackets and mounted the turn signals to the oem cargo rack. Here is how it turned out. I still want to get some small LED turn signals, but I'll save that for another day. I do still have full access to the key hold and it's much cleaner looking IMHO.
The turn lights seem a little impractical, and not very pleasing visually. Why not attaching them directly to the bottom of the plate holder using two small L brackets. I would also install a couple of bolt-on license plate lights on the top... I know that you don't ride at night, but AFAIK they are still very much required.
Looks good dmw but those rear ends are hard to come by, back in the day. LOL I bet it made some one cringe to see you cut yours when they waited for months to get the rear fender from the factory when theres broke almost identical to where you cut it. Curious if you get in the mud does it throw a roaster on your back. Only reason I have left mine. Read on here a year or so ago some one else did and it through a rooster tail of mud back on the rider. On a side not notice you took the baffles out of the rear exhaust. How do you like the sound?
IMHO, the oem rear fender and signals are not very pleasing visually. The second I loaded the bike on the truck at the dealer, I knew I'd be hacking that monstrosity off. I guess that everybody has their own opinions. I like a bike that has minimal amount of stuff added on, particularly at the rear of the bike. I like to see the rear tire, exhaust, etc. I guess that's my dirt bike background. I'm in Arizona. Mud is pretty hard to come by. On the rare occasion that I do come across mud, I try to avoid it. I removed the little spark arrestors a couple weeks ago and haven't missed tweety bird one bit. No more chirps, and no more annoying de-celeration coughing/wheezing.
spark arrestors*, not baffles. Makes sense on not worrying about mud. Here in Florida everywhere you go off road there is mud at some point. I do like the look of it though.
