Archive for February 16th, 2010

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Le Mans I Fairing on Breva 750

February 16, 2010

For some time now I’ve been pondering about the Le Mans I fairing: How might it look on my Little Goose? I’ve had the Guzzi bikini fairing that came with the bike for two years now and it worked, well sort of fine. It blocked some wind off of me but mostly I got hit in the chest at high speeds, not something that really bothered me. What did not work for me about the fairing was that if I tried to dock beneath it on the highway above 60 mph then the wind turbulence around my helmet was pretty much awful. Like a tornado spinning round and round. and the noise! But i didn’t think about from that stand point.

I just liked the way the Le Mans I fairing looked. And I wondered from a purely aesthetic point of view. Didn’t know if it could be modified to fit the Breva 750 and didn’t know whether it might improve the bike from a practical point of view either. But what the hell. After months of thinking about it and for € 150 I thought it was a chance worth taking.

The result has been beyond surprising. Adapting it (thanks to the help of old faithful José, without whom this would not have been done, as usual) we went to work on it. It took us all day as the fairing is larger in length than would fit the Little B directly. So, yes, all day of cutting and fitting and cutting and fitting. PITA. But then it worked. Would have looked better if the Little B were about 6 inches longer, which we could have done by fabricating a new bracket that would stretch out the head light. Would have been more elegant, we then realized, but after the grinder had done its cutting job! Oh well.

The great surprise was on the performance of the fairing. You’d swear the bike suddenly got lots faster. There is absolutely no turbulence coming off this thing. Mind you I am a short 5’6” and the wind hits me pretty much as the bikini fairing did; both fairings are in fact about the same height, except the angle on the Le Mans I is much steeper backwards over the  bars. The wind now flows and flows. Smooooooooth. Can’t believe this would have made this difference. Wasn’t looking for it but I sure appreciate it.

I knew there was something about those old Le Mans.

Now we’ll have no choice but to work on the Mickey Mouse mirrors. Bar ends here I come.