Monday, 26 August 2013

Banish the Blind Spot

Why are motorcycle mirrors so inadequate compared to the average car door mirror where blind spots are virtually eliminated?  The ideal mirror would have a wide angle and a deep view too to capture more of the road behind.  A failing with many mirrors is that they give a view through a letter box effect. 

Here at NW Lab I have tried various improvements:

 Riderscan:
First, the Riderscan.

The Riderscan is a hemispherical segment of mirror that provides a near 180 degree coverage.  Unfortunately as mounted on the GS screen it provides an excellent view of mostly me and as it sits in the middle does not provide a logical scan sequence.

SAENG stick ons:

The SAENG rabbit's ears Quick Scans.
These resemble those stick-on blind spot eliminators but have a mounting system that allows them to be stuck independently on a fairing or windscreen.

Quite good when positioned correctly  as they completely cover the blind spot.  They do tend to wobble around a lot. Quite useful on dense motorways and for overtakes as they cover the shoulder check view without losing forward vision.

Finally I have tried to reposition the standard mirrors forward on crank arms (available from Wunderlich, Hornig etc.).

Crank Arms (extenders) - This has been the best - the mirrors are positioned forward and slightly outwards and give a wider effective view.

No comments:

Post a Comment