• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

TR650 Crash bars

dangslow said:
I should have known better. I cancelled my Altrider crash bar order after getting tired of waiting and went with the SW Motech. Fit great...look nice...less expensive...I was a happy guy !! Picked up a Strada to keep the Terra company and since the Altrider bars were available and I hadn't seen any complaints, I got a set at Bills in Salem. There are a couple of problems with these things. Because the frame decreases in width the farther it goes up, as you tighten the bolts the bars 'climb'. They continue up until the bracket hits the exhaust header. Since there is nothing for the bar to hit on the other side that side will 'climb' higher. With this design, it would seem that the attaching brackets would have to be parallel with the frame. The pic is with the bars snug at the upper attachment. Obviously there is a gap. And obviously it is not parallel. When everything is tightened and the brackets are pulled tight to the frame the right side bar is higher than the left. I'll try fabricating a shim....try to figure out how to keep the bracket off the header....drink a few beers while doing it....get pissed off....place on order with Twisted Throttle....and sell these to one of you guys. Sounds like a plan to me.

View attachment 30268 .
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You are spot on. The fix is easy though, I added a hose clamp that keeps the bracket from riding up and hitting the exhaust pipe.
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The nice thing about this is that it is adjustable. So far it seems to be working fine, but I'll keep my eye on it. I'll drill through the brace and put a screw in it to act as a stop if this doesn't hold.

That said, the Altrider crash bar is awesome. it is very robust and looks great. My RH side is not quite at the same level as the LH side as you noted, but go away for a day and you won't notice. One unanticipated bonus is that the angle of the bars make for a perfect foot brace. No highway pegs needed. I have to scooch back on the passenger seat, but that also provides a rest for my non-iron butt. I am 5'9" with a 30" inseam, so it may not work so well for you giants out there. For once, sucks to be you:p
 
Darn it TE250Guy, I wish I had seen your post before I put my brain into gear. Your 'fix' wouldn't have cut into my beer drinking time so much. I went with a link between the upper motor mount and the lower hole in the Altrider bracket. That and M10 bolts instead of the supplied hardware put everything where I wanted it.
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dangslow said:
Darn it TE250Guy, I wish I had seen your post before I put my brain into gear. Your 'fix' wouldn't have cut into my beer drinking time so much. I went with a link between the upper motor mount and the lower hole in the Altrider bracket. That and M10 bolts instead of the supplied hardware put everything where I wanted it.
View attachment 30298
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I like your fix. I think the AlrRider guys watch this thread. I have talked to them since I live in the same area and they are very nice guys who are very responsive and are extremely quality conscious. I think your fix might be a good factory design update. I'll give them a call or shoot them an email.
 
dangslow said:
Darn it TE250Guy, I wish I had seen your post before I put my brain into gear. Your 'fix' wouldn't have cut into my beer drinking time so much. I went with a link between the upper motor mount and the lower hole in the Altrider bracket. That and M10 bolts instead of the supplied hardware put everything where I wanted it.
View attachment 30298
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I'm diggin this! Happen to have any dimms on the link?
 
TE250Guy said:
You are spot on. The fix is easy though, I added a hose clamp that keeps the bracket from riding up and hitting the exhaust pipe.
Click to expand...
Interesting.

I suppose yet another solution would be to simply cut the part off the plate which would otherwise touch the pipe. But then the ALTRider logo would probably be removed.

I believe the way the bars work is that the structural soundness comes from having the flat plate squeezing the down tube firmly, that way the side bolts going into the cylinder would not take as much of the load.
 
I noticed the interference issue when installing my Altrider bars, but just didn't have time to do the required grinding. I was up against it timewise for my COBDR. The bike is in AZ now and I am in TX, so I can't go out to the garage to look at the results after several thousand miles of hammering the bike. Later.... I like the hose clamp idea for a quick fix!
 
Coffee said:
Interesting.

I suppose yet another solution would be to simply cut the part off the plate which would otherwise touch the pipe. But then the ALTRider logo would probably be removed.
Click to expand...

I don't think this would necessarily solve the issue, if I understand your intentions. I think the point was made that since the engine mounting frame tapers from large at the bottom to smaller at the top, then the bars would continually creep upwards until stopped by the exhaust pipe.
 
hasenpfeffer said:
I don't think this would necessarily solve the issue, if I understand your intentions. I think the point was made that since the engine mounting frame tapers from large at the bottom to smaller at the top, then the bars would continually creep upwards until stopped by the exhaust pipe.
Click to expand...
+1
 
dangslow said:
Darn it TE250Guy, I wish I had seen your post before I put my brain into gear. Your 'fix' wouldn't have cut into my beer drinking time so much. I went with a link between the upper motor mount and the lower hole in the Altrider bracket. That and M10 bolts instead of the supplied hardware put everything where I wanted it.
View attachment 30298
Click to expand...

If I had the Altrider bars, I'd be doing this fix, and putting one on the other side too, to stop any chance of twisting and keep it right where it belongs. Good use of brain power and not a waste of beer drinking time! It works great with your skid plate. I think it'd be fine with the B&B like Nev and others have, as it goes up steeper than the SW-Motech mount.

Altrider claimed theirs was better due to the top mount. I'd say that part of the design is solid. The compression fitting lower mount, not so much.
 
hasenpfeffer said:
I don't think this would necessarily solve the issue, if I understand your intentions. I think the point was made that since the engine mounting frame tapers from large at the bottom to smaller at the top, then the bars would continually creep upwards until stopped by the exhaust pipe.
Click to expand...
Thought about that after I typed what I typed. Not sure, but you would well be correct.
 
The AltRider bars were designed to sit below the exhaust to avoid causing damage to the pipe in a wreck. As obvious as it seems, please double check that the front of the bars are mounted with the longer bolt on the bottom and the shorter bolt on top. If reversed, the bars cannot properly clamp the frame, allowing that clamp to rise over time. We've had a few people contact us with this same issue that you all are having – only to be remedied by carefully following the instructions by mounting the longer bolt on bottom.

Currently our President is out of the office, and will be back next week. Any further decisions regarding the crash bars won't be made until he returns. We want you to know we are aware of the issues, and will work with you to sort them out – please call our office at 206-922-3618 or email info@altrider.com to talk to a customer service representative. We take pride in our products and strive to create designs that are ready to install when you receive them - no cutting, grinding, or modifying required.
 
When I installed the Altrider bars on my bike I followed the instructions provided and never saw any evidence of the bars wanting to creep up the frame during installation. I checked mine last night and the frame clamp is still mounted exactly where it was when I installed them. That was 5 weeks / 500 km ago.
 
Thanks for the heads up fellas. Mine have also crept up & touching the header pipe. I've had them installed for two weeks and have not been off road so bumps, etc is not the cause. The longer vs. shorter bolt installation will not cause retention problems.
I was also disappointed with their packaging as they were chipped when I received them (or the powder coating is of poor quality). I paid a premium price for these which makes this purchase unfulfilling.
 
AUS_TR650 said:
I paid a premium price for these through the Aussie importer which makes this purchase unfulfilling.
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I bought mine direct from Altrider and had them shipped to Australia. When I checked the price on the Australian distributors website, shipping included, the local price was only about $5 more than what I paid in $US.
 
Mine have the creep problem and the powder coating is like spray can quality. very thin and comes off easy. Took me forever to get them not to hit the header pipe. So i am not happy.:naughty: You would think with all the time it took to get them they would be perfect.
 
dangslow said:
Darn it TE250Guy, I wish I had seen your post before I put my brain into gear. Your 'fix' wouldn't have cut into my beer drinking time so much. I went with a link between the upper motor mount and the lower hole in the Altrider bracket. That and M10 bolts instead of the supplied hardware put everything where I wanted it.
View attachment 30298
Click to expand...


If I bought the Altrider bars I would demand they make brackets like this and a shim for side that is off. Just the idea of bars that clamp onto a frame that is tapered makes me want to throw up. It looks like a decent bump from the left bar would send it right into the exhaust.
 
Installed the SW-Motech crash bars a month ago. Installed easy, no issues, looks good. Did my first lay down... on a steep, lose and rocky climb that I should not of been on. I feared damage to the bike after I took my own inventory and found only small deep cuts to the upper corner of the bar. I could find no other damage after washing. Without a guard (from any manufacturer) I would possibly be replacing a case cover, plastic and who knows what. Happy?... Yes.
 
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