Windshield for Royal Enfield Bullet

Product: Windshield
Make: Royal Enfield
Purchased on: Jan 2007
Overal rating: Excellent

The need:
1. When driving at good speeds near paddy fields at dawn or at dusk, lot of small flies comes and hit against the shirt, killing itself and spraying blood stains all over the dress

2. At times my little one just want to sit in front of me, and I want to protect him against these flies and dust

3. I liked its looks

The study:

The study based on net search and discussion with friends on pros and cons of fitting this yielded the following results,

1. It will create drag because of higher resistance, but there was no concrete evidence to prove this theory
2. Visibility will be very less especially when helmet is worn
3. It is very costly
4. In the event of a fall this can be dangerous


The decision:
Sometimes, even if you hear so many cons, you just decide based on your instincts and in this case also my instincts made me buy it

The purchase process:

The local dealer in my town told that it will take atleast 1 month to source it and quoted a price of 5.6k INR, which was a good 1.5K higher than one of my friends whom I have contacted had bought it, one year ago. I searched in other cities too and luckily found out one dealer who had one in their godown and offered me at the previous price. Within no time, I purchased it with the help of one of my friends in that place

The fitting

I decided to ride down to the place where this was bought which is a good 250 Kms away from my place (another reason to ride).

The packing was quite excellent, since it was a small package than I had in my mind.

On opening the following components were present

Nuts: 15 numbers
Short clamp: 2 numbers
Long clamp: 2 numbers
Small pipe like clamp: 1 number
Windshield : 2 parts

The fitment with the markings are as shown below.




1 & 2: Nuts to fix the short clamp to the headlight assembly. Only in Machismo there is provision for this nut to be mounted on the headlight assembly. In other models of bullets, one need to drill a hole.

3, 4, 5 & 6: Nuts to fix the lower part of windshield to the headlight clamps

7, 8, 9, 10 & 11: Lock nuts to join the lower part of the windshield with the upper part. Note that, since these are lock nuts, they won't tighten too much against the windshield. If you use any other nut instead of these original lock nuts, chances are there for cracks to appear, since those nuts tighten themselves against the windshield body.

12 & 13: Nuts to fix the upper part of the windshield with the long clamp which acts a support for this long windshield. The long clamp is to be fixed to the handle before this is done.

14 & 15: Nuts to fix the long clamp to the handle

16: Pipe like clamp which is to be fitted in the handle. The long clamp goes inside this pipe, which is tightened using nuts 14 and 15

17 & 18: The short clamp, which is fitted in the headlight assembly using nuts 1 & 2

19 & 20: The long clamp, which is fitted to the handle using the pipe clamp and which acts as support to the upper part of the windshield

21 & 22: Windshield lower part and upper part.

This is just a do it yourself fitment, but if you don't have all the tools then better do it at an authorised service centre.

Another thing to ensure when the package is opened is to check whether all the nuts are present. In my case it was not there and the installer tried to put normal nuts instead of lock nuts. Luckily this was found out and when the matter was reported to Royal enfield by their website feedback form, I got a prompt response and replacement was done within 2 weeks. EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SUPPORT isn't it?

Pros and cons I experienced with Windshield on

Pros

1. It really adds to the looks. A favourite with kids, coz you can always see them pointing towards you. Windshield is best avoided, if you don't want to be the centre of attention.

2. Fatigue levels are lesser after long rides because the hard hitting of air onto your chest is missing and this is one of the reasons for fatigue

3. You can ride even without your jacket on through the crowded and dusty city traffic and still emerge with a neat shirt.

4. The flies and other insects are clearly blocked

5. The drag is less, since the resistance offered by the slightly slanting, glassy surface is less than the resistance offered by the body. (My top speeds not decreased after fitting this one. Tested this before and after the fitment)

6. During heavy rains, water don't lash hard against your body. It will not completely block the water, but just helps to reduce its severity and your rain jacket is happy at the lesser work it has to do, to keep your body dry

Cons

1. Driving at night, when it drizzles is a pain. The lights of oncoming traffic will be brighten up this windshield and you will not be able to see anything in front through the windshield. If your height is more than 175cms you will be able to see through the top.

2. Maintaining it clean and scratch free is a pain.

Now time to see for yourself, one of the snaps of my bull with windshield



Feel free to ask me any questions in this regard, by commenting on this post.

If you are interested in reading my experiences of long rides in a bullet, please visit here http://subups.blogspot.com

To know about other not so common accessories click on the following links
1. Custom made dual sideboxes - a practical as well as aesthetic solution
2. Goldstar silencer