K1300s

[mangocrazy]

I guess it's probably more complicated than all that and also quite different from person to person?

Longer bars mean more leverage, but you also have to move them further and so on. They also put your arms, which are also levers of course, in different places/orientations and hence its gonna be different for every rider?

Absolutely. Difference in shoulder width makes a big difference to how riders react to differing bar widths. Broad shoulders - wide bars, narrow shoulders - shorter bars.

If you try to twist and object (like opening a jar) you tend to put your hands close together right? 'Cause it puts your arms/shoulders in a more "powerful" position.

The only twisting force applied to bars is on the throttle. It's a push/pull motion that's used for steering, so the Archimedes principle applies - 'Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.'

[Mr. Dazzle]

Twisting is the wrong word.

If I gave you a big T bar and asked you to generate as much torque as you could with it, you wouldn't spread your arms out as wide as you can, would ya?

[mangocrazy]

Twisting is the wrong word.

If I gave you a big T bar and asked you to generate as much torque as you could with it, you wouldn't spread your arms out as wide as you can, would ya?

Errr, yes I would.

[Count Steer]

I blame the surge in popularity of Adventure bikes for this. Not only do you have wider bars to contend with, but bar muffs, lever protectors and other add-on goodies. It's just an easy way to increase leverage at the bars to provide reasonably responsive turn-in on overweight barges to my mind...

Leverage? Sorry, I just find that funny. You don't need to go to the gym before you can get a GS to tip in you know. Also, lengthening the bars decreases sensitivity - in one sense ie you need more arm movement for the same effect, but yes, also an erg or two more of force. I've found the bars to be a tad wide on a couple of bikes but that was down to riding position..I'd have been happy with 1" off either end and I don't suppose I'd have built up a sweat turning them or needed power steering fitted.

Oh dear - I appear to have unwittingly earned the wrath of the GS-ers... My comment wasn't a pop at any bike in particular, but rather the whole Adv bike market sector. However, if the cap fits... Adv bikes to me seem to be 'normal' bikes pumped up to the max on steroids - bigger, wider, taller, more imposing etc. etc. I'm sure that bar width on these type of bikes is scaled to fit with all the other super-sized dimensions, but the net effect is to provide extra leverage which does make turning the bikes on the move more easy. Not really quite sure why you found this comment funny?

Oh, it's just that the leverage thing made an image of people with their eyeballs bulging and the veins standing out on their temples as they attempt to get an Adv bike round a corner popped into my head. Surely, if you get the bike geometry right, the force needed is pretty minimal? (Better not mention counter-steering!). I found the GS's to be, not exactly agile but easier to get wiggling on the move than some smaller bikes and some biggish non-Adv ones.

I suppose the other thing that made me smile is that the world isn't divided into those that squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom or in the middle...it's more those that don't like Advs and those that do.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Twisting is the wrong word.

If I gave you a big T bar and asked you to generate as much torque as you could with it, you wouldn't spread your arms out as wide as you can, would ya?

Errr, yes I would.

Well you wouldn't twist as hard as is possible then . Unless you want to give it a big hug is suppose. You would spread them wide, but not like right angles in a Jesus christ pose.

Widest bars don't necessarily give the highest turning forces is my point.

[Horse]

Twisting is the wrong word.

If I gave you a big T bar and asked you to generate as much torque as you could with it, you wouldn't spread your arms out as wide as you can, would ya?

I wouldn't (indeed, don't) think of undoing things in terms of torque.

Instead, more undoing power/force/effort needed = longer spanner/whatever

20230531_140615.jpg (24.28 KiB) Viewed 326 times

[Mr. Dazzle]

Interesting viewpoint and I suppose not intuitively wrong.

Maybe don't use that spanner on your bleed nipples though.

[mangocrazy]

Twisting is the wrong word.

If I gave you a big T bar and asked you to generate as much torque as you could with it, you wouldn't spread your arms out as wide as you can, would ya?

Errr, yes I would.

Well you wouldn't twist as hard as is possible then . Unless you want to give it a big hug is suppose. You would spread them wide, but not like right angles in a Jesus christ pose.

Widest bars don't necessarily give the highest turning forces is my point.

You didn't state how 'big' (wide) the T-bar was, did you? I'd spread my arms as wide as was comfortable and gave the maximum leverage. And i grant you that a 2 (or 3 or 4) metre handlebar wouldn't give any greater leverage than a 1 metre one, simply because the extra length would not make it more usable. Quite the opposite, in fact.

My point (which I'm sure you recognise) is that wider bars up to a certain point determined by usability increase leverage and therefore turning force.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah in my head I was picturing an infinitely long t bar (which exists in a frictionless vacuum, natch) where you have free reign to just pick a point(s) to grab. You'd go for about shoulder width apart.

This has piqued my curiosity actually. There must be a sweet spot for "arms far enough apart to generate big torques, but no so far apart that you can't get a decent shove on". I bet there's even a NASA document telling you how hard the 95th percentile person can push/pull with their arms in various positions.

[Horse]

Interesting viewpoint and I suppose not intuitively wrong.

Maybe don't use that spanner on your bleed nipples though.

Let's use an example that I have done, often: spark plugs.

Put them in finger tight (i.e. by hand only), then nip up slightly tighter using, because more tighteny force is needed, a spanner with an 'arm'.

However, were I to be tightening up big bolts on a traction engine, then I might use something like that pictured.


I've often thought that a necessary skill for a great mechanic is an intuitive feel for how much grunt any given item can take.

[Mr. Dazzle]

What you're actually trying to do with a bolt (usually) is axially stretch it, despite the fact you do them up (normally) by turning them.

Having someone who can actually feel that axial stretch correctly isn't very much worse than a torque wrench. Perhaps fairer is that torque wrenches are shite!

[Dickyboy]

Mountain bike bar widths are very wide too. A day's training with Jedi led me to start narrowing my handlebars.

I'm 6ft & an ape index of +8cm, so "should" run really wide bars but instead finding myself giggling at the peeps with their chins nearly on the bars & wrists at horrible angles because fashion dictates...

[mangocrazy]

I'm probably one of the older gits on here, and have found in the last 5-10 years that my shoulders, elbows and wrists are increasingly intolerant of not just horrible bar angles, but even slightly awkward ones. After not many miles I realised that I couldn't get on with the standard (but slightly shortened) bars on my Duke 690. I was getting pains in shoulders, elbows and wrists after a journey of just over 70 miles. This lead me to try and figure out what bar ergonomics my old bones would tolerate and I came up with:

Bar width - 750 to 800mm
Bar droop from horizontal - approx 20 degrees
Bar 'pull back' from straight - approx 20 degrees
Bar height - that which allows me to hold a slightly leaning forward posture. No clip-ons any more for me - no sirree...

This may of course change as I get increasingly ancient.

[mangocrazy]

I suppose the other thing that made me smile is that the world isn't divided into those that squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom or in the middle...it's more those that don't like Advs and those that do.

What I don't like about the great majority of Adv bikes is that they're just so damn heavy, and (to a lesser extent) so tall. I'm not a shortie (5ft 10-ish) with a 32" inseam, but a lot of Advs leave me unable to flat-foot on a level surface and a combination of that, their weight and the fact that the weight is carried high, would make me very uneasy on anything other than the best of surfaces.

The looks I'm ambivalent about. There aren't really any Adv bikes I go 'oh yes' about, but there are quite a lot that have had more than a passing acquaintance with the ugly stick. Some seem to positively flaunt it...

I also really do wonder how many of these Adv bikes actually go off-road. I'd venture to suggest that most of them are the 2-wheel equivalent of a Chelsea tractor. And if they don't go off-road, why put up with the penalty of extra weight and height? And stupid-looking 'beaks'?

To me it's a source of some annoyance that the rise and rise of the Adv bike has coincided with the decline of the sports-tourer and its even smaller subset, the sporty tourer. Oh well...

[Supermofo]

So back to K1300s' I'd forgotten about them and my brother loves big fast IL4s so I've just reminded him with some ebay ads

Any issues they suffer from? Or are they just sausage flavoured Busa/ZZR14

[Rockburner]

Thanks to the Duolever front end they have a particular maintenance issue: the ball joints can wear over time (like steering head bearings, which is what they are), but ideally you need a trained mechanic to swap them otherwise it's very easy to strip the threads in the "yokes".

Other than that i think they're pretty golden. There was a gearbox issue, but any bike still in use should be sorted by now.

[Bigyin]

What I don't like about the great majority of Adv bikes is that they're just so damn heavy, and (to a lesser extent) so tall. I'm not a shortie (5ft 10-ish) with a 32" inseam, but a lot of Advs leave me unable to flat-foot on a level surface and a combination of that, their weight and the fact that the weight is carried high, would make me very uneasy on anything other than the best of surfaces.

The looks I'm ambivalent about. There aren't really any Adv bikes I go 'oh yes' about, but there are quite a lot that have had more than a passing acquaintance with the ugly stick. Some seem to positively flaunt it...

I also really do wonder how many of these Adv bikes actually go off-road. I'd venture to suggest that most of them are the 2-wheel equivalent of a Chelsea tractor. And if they don't go off-road, why put up with the penalty of extra weight and height? And stupid-looking 'beaks'?

To me it's a source of some annoyance that the rise and rise of the Adv bike has coincided with the decline of the sports-tourer and its even smaller subset, the sporty tourer. Oh well...

In the defence of my ADV bike i absolutely love it. Its big enough for me to be comfy on it on massive mileage days whilst touring. It also hustles along quite happily on track thanks to the 150 BHP detuned sports bike engine, decent suspension and brakes. Comes with easily removeable full luggage to carry all my camping crap yet it all just clips off to make a big supermoto. In my mind its the perfect sports tourer. Pic below was on a soaking wet track when almost nobody else wanted to go out and play....you can tell the weather wasnt good as its one of the rare occasions i ever have a clear visor on



And yes it has been off road a few times including mountain rock trails as well as sandy lanes and loose gravel tracks ....being 6 foot 1 with inch leg reach i find it perfect for my size, even on loose surfaces where i have had to take a dab to keep things straight/upright.






I actually looked at the K1300 as an option when i was trading in the GS but the fact i would need to take whatever i chose off road for an upcoming Norway tour at the time made it an easy throw away off the "what bike to get" list hence ending up with the Multistrada

[mangocrazy]

I absolutely get that for a lot of folk, Advs are exactly what they want and need. I mean, they wouldn't sell in the numbers they do if they weren't appealing to a wide (and presumably very satisfied) audience. I really like the fact that they tend to have longer than 'normal' travel suspension, as that improves the comfort factor, and if you do want to do a bit of not-too-serious offroading that just adds to the appeal. But their undoubted success means that they now almost exclusively occupy the market sector formerly held by sports tourers and have effectively squeezed out the 'traditional' sports tourer.

But market forces determine what bikes manufacturers make, and Advs are undoubtedly flavour of the moment. The only bike that I can think of that covers the sporty tourer niche, while still being light and with good performance is the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce. I think that when s/h prices have subsided a bit I may well go for one of those.

[Count Steer]

I suppose the other thing that made me smile is that the world isn't divided into those that squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom or in the middle...it's more those that don't like Advs and those that do.

What I don't like about the great majority of Adv bikes is....

Don't buy one, they aren't compulsory.

Topic: Supermofo: If the K1300 is like the K12 only betterer, what's not to like? Not had an S (I'm not 'foldable' enough, but the riding position doesn't look too ) I think that series of engines is As RB says, most of the issues have been ironed out over time, not that I had any with my K12, not even a recall as far as I can remember.

[Bigjawa]

First world problems......

I actually find the GS easier to throw about than the K12, even with mandlebars.

K13 is meant to have more power, doesn't have the crunchy clutch but doesn't have the excellent double indicator switches.