Tommaselli Clip Ons and Adjustable Bars

Ok Guys,
After scouring the forum for posts and pics of Tommaselli Clip ons and Adjustable Bars, I found a few. But little or no hints or views of how they are installed.
The Bars, well no explanation needed. Bolt them on and adjust,
But the Clip-ons, it seems in all the pictures the stock headlight ears have been replaced by custom ears.
Is it possible to install them right over the stock ears? It seems like they would fit height wise.
That is where they clamp on to the fork tops, maybe between the top of the stock ears and the bottom of the top of the triple tree.
Anyone with experience with either setup (Bars or Clips) chime in with yur opinions on function, handling and cosmetics.
And what is the diameter for over the ears or without and custom headlight bracket choices if any?

Joe dog......

Joe, It is of course possible to trim the original ears to fit clip ons at the top, but the problem is twofold; first the standard ears are a fairly loose fit on the fork tubes and rely on thin O-rings recessed in the top and bottom triple clamps to prevent them from rattling, I'm not sure how you might prevent this happening with clip-ons. The second problem is that the clamp part of the clip ons on my Dunstall set would necessitate trimming part of the headlamp ear itself and not just the tubular section, your Tommasselis may not have this problem, but I think it destroys the look if you have to also trim the ears. Tommaselli do some very nice classic looking headlamp brackets, or else the traditional John Tickle style brackets that you see on many Tritons and other cafe racers are available from 'Unity Equipe' in the UK and probably from many other vendors as well. Although you probably dont want them any lower than the top of the fork tubes the ability to slide them up and down a bit might conceivable give just the right amount of clearance you need to mount a master cylinder and it's associated hoses at your preferred lever angle.

While clip ons may look cool, they have a big disadvantage, lack of leverage which is especially useful when kicking the bike over. As mentioned, the stock ears must be replaced with a clam-on headlight bracket or if you are well connected, the "S" type headlight "halo", but then you must replace or modify the triple trees.

Have you considered clubman bars? what about shorter euro style bars or even drag bars? By using handlebars held in the usual way, you won't have the empty clamps staring you in the face everytime you ride.

Jean

Watch out for Tommaselli adjustable clip ons with alloy clamps as they will be 35mm and will not clamp on Norton fork tubes which are actually 1 3/8" (34.5mm approx).

Jeandr said:

While clip ons may look cool, they have a big disadvantage, lack of leverage which is especially useful when kicking the bike over. As mentioned, the stock ears must be replaced with a clam-on headlight bracket or if you are well connected, the "S" type headlight "halo", but then you must replace or modify the triple trees.

Have you considered clubman bars? what about shorter euro style bars or even drag bars? By using handlebars held in the usual way, you won't have the empty clamps staring you in the face everytime you ride.

Jean

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With clip-ons you can use a dummy bar in the clamps. It makes a good place to put the choke lever. Depending on the bend of the clubman bars, a set of aftermarket headlight ears may help you get the bars rotated back far enough to make them comfortable for you. The first set of clubman bars I had weren't very comfortable until I fitted aftermarket headlight ears so I could rotate them back.

I think that with the Tomaselli adjustable clubman bars you might be able to find a comforable position without fitting aftermarket headlight ears. I've used clubman bars (the Tomaselli ones are my favorites) for most of the time I've owned it. I've currently got clip-ons on it. I find them pretty comfortable at speed and acceptable around town, but haven't had them on for very long. The clip-ons are LOW, a couple inches lower than clubman bars. I come from a bicycle road racing background, so I'm probably more comfortable with low handlebars than most folks.

-Eric