Why do we start buying motorcycle accessories as soon as we buy a new motorcycle? Put another way, why do manufacturers always leave a gap in their finished product, which we feel the immediate need to fill?
A dealer once told me that there was more room to manoeuvre on price if you were buying a complete aftermarket exhaust system than there often was in a motorcycle sale. Maybe not in terms of absolute cash, but the percentage discount they could offer from the list price was much higher.
Perhaps that is why the manufacturer’s prices for the same motorcycle accessory are so high. As I write this in mid-February, a few weeks before the “new” registrations come out, Honda has a deal on offering you £750 of accessories for your NT1100 or Africa Twin, providing you buy a 2022/23 model – still brand new – just last year’s colours.
Suzuki has gone one better, and if you are in the market for a V-Strom 1050, there is £1,000 worth of accessories going begging.
But my point still stands. Even with these accessory offers, the everyday stuff we need, radiator guards, rear huggers, and, in many cases, engine bars, are missing from the motorcycle as standard.
This is why, having just taken delivery of a new motorcycle, I’m on the internet, motorcycle accessory shopping, much to the disbelief of senior management.
Pyramid Moto
For me, the first stop is always a radiator guard. After one of my colleagues took a stone through the radiator a few days after collecting a new bike, it has always seemed the most sensible thing to add.
As the primary cause of holes in the radiator are stones flicked up by the front wheel, it also made sense to buy the front mudguard extension at the same time. I’ve never understood the concept of reducing the size of mudguards and rear huggers on motorcycles.
The whole point of huggers and mudguards is to stop road crap spraying all over our motorcycles, so why cut them down to an ineffective size? Unless, of course, the designer just thought it looked better and, to hell with the practicalities of life.
Anyway, all three motorcycle accessories are easily sourced from the same place – Pyramid Moto.
Pyramid Moto have been famous for their “Extenda Fendas” for years, and we have had a set on our Tracer 9GT from new.
Something that looks so simple often takes a significant investment in time to perfect. Pyramid Moto designs and manufactures them in the UK, and then, sadly, their work is often reverse-engineered, and knock-off copies are produced overseas.
There are two models of Extenda Fenda available – depending on the exact make and model of your bike – one is an extension designed to mould with the factory mudguard and attached with either adhesive pads or unobtrusive plastic rivets.
For those needing a more substantial mudguard extension to keep the road crap off their expensive motorcycle, there is the Extenda Fenda EXTRA. It’s the same design concept, just more substantial to give even greater protection.
Hepco and Becker
The easy answer to not needing crash bars is not to have an unscheduled dismount. But life isn’t that black and white. My beloved V-Strom once rolled off the sidestand. It was my fault. I’d not checked the stand was down and locked when I put the weight of the V-Strom on it, and it folded up.
The bike started its inevitable downward journey, and I couldn’t hold it. We both ended up in a heap on the floor. The damage was mostly to my pride, thanks to the engine bars that prevented the expensive parts of the V-Strom from coming into contact with the ground.
It is much cheaper to dress some scratches out of the engine bars than it would be to start replacing fairing panels and engine casings.
Usually, I would go to the SW-Motech website, and order engine bars from there, but the new NT1100 that has me motorcycle accessory shopping has intricate bodywork that deflects the weather away from your feet as well as your upper body.
The engine bars from Hepco&Becker come as separate upper and lower sets. The upper set protects the tank and main fairing, while the lower set covers the engine casings and the fairings at foot level, which would be the first thing to meet the ground if my ride turned to custard.
Hepco&Becker was started in Germany by Franz Becker in the 1970s. Ever expanding, Hepco&Becker absorbed Krauser in the late 1990s and, with the turn of the millennium, expanded and now sells motorcycle accessories across the globe. There is even a dealer in Iceland.
Scottoiler
Anything I can say about Scottoilers, we have already said. They are epic. They simplify chain maintenance and prolong chain life. The best bit is that they move from one motorcycle to another, so – within reason – they are a one-time purchase.
The latest generation of Scottoiler, the Gen3, has just been released, building on the wonderful Gen2 version I’ve been running for the past couple of years.
With the arrival of the Gen3, SportsBikeShop (as I write this) has some cracking deals on Gen2 Scottoilers that are well worth a look.
Motorcycle Accessories
After buying the bike and getting fleeced by the insurance company for daring to change my motorcycle part way through the policy, and then getting fleeced again, this time by the government and their road tax cash generation scheme, the weather forecast is for bucket loads of rain.
So, while it is damp and soggy outside, I’ll spend the time in the garage fitting the motorcycle accessories Honda didn’t think I needed.
