Fairing idea

Seriously this has as much wind protection as a cholate tea-pot. All it will do is push a bigger flow of air onto your chest if you are riding upright! I prefer my home made one, at least the manufactures did it in a wind tunnel before I modified it.

With my one I could ride all day long with the visor up, only having to sink down below the screen at 90 MPH!
 
Looks great if you ask me! It’s more the aesthetics of the bike than the practicality for me personality. Methinks the bracketing would be a bit of a nightmare though! I would pay that price no problem if the brackets were included.

Steve
 
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The brackets are included... for a BMW...!

Regarding functionality, I disagree with the chocolate teapot comment, a screen does not have to be huge to make a difference. It all depends on what level of wind protection you’re looking for. Even the tiny screen fitted to my 961 CR made difference to how it directed the air. Not as good as a barn door touring fairing of course, but noticeably better than nothing.
 
Re; “Not as good as a barn door touring fairing of course, but noticeably better than nothing. “

I would avoid touring fairings and screens with barn doors, they are frame mounted and will fail to deflect the air around the rider at high speeds, Motor Cycle Weekly did an article many moons ago on this subject- it makes a considerable difference if you can design a fairing that follows it.

Q; have you ever rode a bike that had its fairing developed in a wind tunnel?

There are not that many about, perhaps the most famous one was the BMW R100RS that came out way back in the late 1970s- you should get a ride on one sometime, you might find what keeping the wind off you while sitting upright at high speed is all about.
 
Off-topic, but I rode one of those BMWs at 110 mph, looking over the screen with no visor or goggles.
 
Re; “Not as good as a barn door touring fairing of course, but noticeably better than nothing. “

I would avoid touring fairings and screens with barn doors, they are frame mounted and will fail to deflect the air around the rider at high speeds, Motor Cycle Weekly did an article many moons ago on this subject- it makes a considerable difference if you can design a fairing that follows it.

Q; have you ever rode a bike that had its fairing developed in a wind tunnel?

There are not that many about, perhaps the most famous one was the BMW R100RS that came out way back in the late 1970s- you should get a ride on one sometime, you might find what keeping the wind off you while sitting upright at high speed is all about.

BMW is frame mounted!
 
Speaking of functionality, the fairing & screen in Nigel's link looks roughly the same size as the quarter fairing & low windscreen on Thruxton R.
While it doesn't obliterate all sources of wind like a big BMW touring bike fairing& windscreen combo does, it actually works better than the big BMW fairing and windscreen in some difficult situations with headwinds and crosswinds.
A buddy & I learned this quite recently when on our way back to BC from Montana.
We encountered ferocious headwinds and he nearly lost the bike( BMW rt1200R) more than once. At the end of a 70 mile stretch, when we stopped for breakfast, he was completely knackered.
I felt the winds on the Triumph, but it was not affecting the bike much as it is shaped like a bullet rather than a sheet of plywood like his BMW.
The other good thing about the quarter fairing and low windshield is that while it puts most of your body in calmed air, it does retain a good flow onto the upper chest. With a forward tilted riding position, this flow of air lifts just enough to take weight off the wrists, and more importantly, off the spine and backside.
This is how I manage to ride that bike 1100 kms in a day and feel ok at the end of it .
I cannot do that on any of my other bikes and wouldn't try it on the Triumph if the fairing wasnt there.
I rode 700 kms yesterday on the other Triumph, the Daytona 955i. It offers similar but slightly greater wind protection vs the quarter fairing. It also has an airflow coming over the windscreen, which is helpful.
The riding position on that bike is a bit more aggressive, so 700 kms was plenty on this 64 year old body!



Glen
 
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Q; have you ever rode a bike that had its fairing developed in a wind tunnel?

There are not that many about, perhaps the most famous one was the BMW R100RS

Yup, ridden one of those, fabulous things too.

But do not discount barn doors. The Road King I road last year had a huge perspex screen, tall, wide, almost flat and bigger than many barn doors. It was excellent up to around 100mph, probably good beyond that but I didn’t do so.

But I’m not sure wha we’re discussing here? No one is disputing the effectiveness of effective fairings. This thread was posted in response to those in other recent threads who wanted ideas for a stylish little bolt on to their 961.

The BMW fairing could certainly never be described as such !
 
Fairings designed in a wind tunnel are excellent in a wind tunnel or in fairly calm air.
I rode for several years before encountering the type of wind condition where a small bullet fairing is better than a big fairing and windshield.
In fact an open bike is better than a big faired in grandpa bike in those conditions.
The little bullet fairing is better yet.
The wind is changing direction so fast that it's difficult to ride. The more surface area without holes( big fairing and big windshield), the more you get thrown about.
Not everybody experiences these conditions, but on US highway 97 there is a 200 mile stretch that has thrown this at us every trip.
We had a Vincent Black Prince along on one trip. Back in 1955 some buyers questioned how the fully faired big windshield bike would manage in a cross wind. The official response from Vincent was that the entire fairing and screen had been " Wind tunnel tested and is completely unaffected by cross winds"
Wind tunnel tested maybe but unaffected by crosswinds, BS!
I can tell you from personal experience that the Vincent Black Prince is almost unrideable in strong cross winds.
While I was getting buffetted sideways a foot or two on an open Rapide, the Black Prince in front of me was crossing into the oncoming lane with some of the gusts!
The modern day BMW R1200RT suffers much the same way in those winds.

Glen
 
The other good thing about the quarter fairing and low windshield is that while it puts most of your body in calmed air, it does retain a good flow onto the upper chest. With a forward tilted riding position, this flow of air lifts just enough to take weight off the wrists, and more importantly, off the spine and backside.

Glen

I like the minimalist Beemer fairing, it reminds me of the '78 Guzzi LeMans unit.
The flow over a Bikini fairing does reduce pressure on the wrists, and shoulders, or back.
But to produce the required flow requires a brisk rate of speed.

At 65mph the flow will not make much difference, and a forward tilt will become tiring.
At 80mph or so the improvement becomes instantly noticeable.
 
My Thrux is good at 70 mph for this.
The Daytona requires 80 mph for the same weightless effect.
Maybe that's why it generates so many speeding tickets!

Glen
 
Slap my wrists but I've recently exceeded triple digit speeds more times than the bikes been out, not sustained, just for a blast, and I have lost any desire for a fairing. I don't tour and there is nowhere that I would want to go where I could sit at illegal speeds for any length of time anyway, but the sheer thrill of full on wind in your chest for a mile or two is one of the many reasons why I think I've stuck with bikes for so long. I had a Road King in the 90's with a full fairing, and again similar fairing on the Guzzi California.... I just felt caged on those rides and in all honesty would rather have taken the car.
 
I’m with Mx - won’t be touring anywhere on my CR, it’s not what it was built for. So, any fairing would be for aesthetics only. If it resulted in taking a little pressure of my wrists then that would be an added bonus. The bike is beutiful as it is however, I think it would look even better with a (Thruxton like) fairing. If I wanna go touring I tuck the Norton up nice and warm in the garage, apologise to her and elope with the KTM 990 Adventure; now there’s a go anywhere bike! The Norton I save for Sunday morning thrashes, as the biking gods intended!
 
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Off-topic, but I rode one of those BMWs at 110 mph, looking over the screen with no visor or goggles.

My “shed engineered “ fairing was a mould taken from a BMW, that had to be widened for the handlebars, a flip-up screen that was exactly 9 inches from my nose and just the right height so I could see over the top of it (very important!)- I could ride all day with my visor raised – no wind got into my helmet, it’s all a matter of aerodynamics!!

It was bolted to the fork yolks, and unaffected by crosswinds – the front discs were the prime trouble in crosswinds, due to the Bernoulli's effect;

https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-bernoulli-effect.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli's_principle

The aerodynamic knowledge of the 1950s by Vincent was probably known on the back of a postage stamp-we have come a long way since then.
 
Slap my wrists but I've recently exceeded triple digit speeds more times than the bikes been out, not sustained, just for a blast, and I have lost any desire for a fairing. I don't tour and there is nowhere that I would want to go where I could sit at illegal speeds for any length of time anyway, but the sheer thrill of full on wind in your chest for a mile or two is one of the many reasons why I think I've stuck with bikes for so long. I had a Road King in the 90's with a full fairing, and again similar fairing on the Guzzi California.... I just felt caged on those rides and in all honesty would rather have taken the car.
Totally with you. And the knees are suggesting a touring bike in the future, so either a fairingless Road King or Soft Tail are in the cards.
 
My “shed engineered “ fairing was a mould taken from a BMW....
The aerodynamic knowledge of the 1950s by Vincent was probably known on the back of a postage stamp-we have come a long way since then.


Not really, as explained ,my friend's 2011 BMW rt1200r touring bike handles like an outhouse in crosswinds and headwinds.

Glen
 
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