Tailoring Caroline's Sportster for Comfort

I made my first mistake last summer when I let Caroline take out my TSport for a short ride. It was only a couple of laps around an office complex parking lot, but it was long enough for her to exclaim how much more comfortable it was than her 883.

A couple of months later we were at the Ride for Sight in Trenton and, without thinking, I convinced her to take advantage of the Harley demo rides. This would prove to be my second and more grievous mistake. Had I known that she would test drive her first love, the Heritage Softail, and return chanting mantras like "I'm so getting this bike" - well, I would have been far better off just to herd her straight off to the rally vendors instead where the financial penalties would be modest by comparison. I must admit she did look rather cool on the softail.

As much as I would like her to have a Big Twin now, our current budget dictates otherwise. Perhaps in a few years her dream will come true, but until then I had to do something about the incessant whining. Her biggest complaint was not about the power, but mostly about the size, or the lack of it to be more precise. The Sportster simply felt too cramped for her.

To me, the solution was obvious. Raise the handlebars for an even more upright and relaxed riding position, and move the pegs further out so she could stretch her legs. With Christmas only a couple of months away (nothing like killing two birds with one stone), I began my research. It didn't take me long, however, to realize that picking out a new set of bars would be harder than I thought.

The Harley online catalog lists 17 different handlebars for the Sportster, and I can't imagine how many more after market variations are out there. Without having Caroline actually test a set on her bike first, the risk of choosing the wrong one was probably quite high. Then there was the potential cost of wiring extensions and longer cables/hoses making what was originally intended as a simple handlebar swap into something considerably more expensive.

At this point I steered away from new handlebars (pun intended), and started looking at risers. Harley offers two kinds of risers for the Sportster: straight and set-back. Because the instrument panel bolts to the risers' upper clamp, I quickly realized that the set-back version would make the instruments almost vertical and probably very difficult to read (not to mention it would look like crap). That left me with two versions of straight risers: regular (4 inches) and tall (6 inches).

I chose the 4 inch Chrome Handlebar Riser Kit (part no. 56063-82A) in the hope that it would be a straight bolt-on without any other control modifications required. I ordered at the same time the Handlebar Polyurethane Riser Bushing Kit (part no. 56165-03). Supposedly it reduces handlebar vibrations, and that can only be a good thing on a rigid mounted Sportster.

As for giving Caroline more room to stretch out, Kuryakyn provided the solution. The Sporty already had highway pegs; they just needed to be moved forward a bit. The Kuryakyn footpeg offsets (part no. 7996) did just that. To give her even more comfort, I removed the Kuryakyn Dually Pegs off my bike and bolted them on hers (I ordered the Kuryakyn Kaiser Pegs as a replacement for myself).

With these few minor changes, I felt that Caroline would be once again happy with her 883. Problem is, now that the bike fits her better, she is talking about better power instead. Ah well, a 1200 conversion is still a lot cheaper than a new bike.

This is how Caroline’s 883 looked with the stock risers.

The new chrome risers (and hardware) on the left will replace the black painted stock ones on the right.

I had to remove the windshield in order to rotate the handlebars on to the risers. It was tight, but other than removing cable ties to gain that extra fraction of an inch of movement, nothing needed to be removed or disconnected from the handlebars to get them in place. Notice that I have protected the gas tank from scratching – I knew my ratty old insulated vest would come in handy again.

The new risers and bushings are installed, only some positional tweaking of the turn signals and levers remains to be done.

This shot shows you a different angle of the installed risers. Note the ugly steering stem bolt now clearly visible between the risers.

Harley’s highway pegs leave something to be desired.

The Kuryakyn peg extensions still in their blister pack, and above them is one of the Kuryakyn Dually Pegs I donated from my bike.

The Kuryakyn peg extension with the Dually Peg is installed. It may not look like a big functional difference from before; it certainly feels like one, and all for the better.

The new risers were so nice and shiny, and the steering stem bolt so naked and ugly, I had to install a HD’s chrome cover kit (part no. 48329-90) to finish the job. Caroline’s HOG Bucks from a Rider Safety course she took last year covered the cost, so it didn’t cost anything but a little time.