Plexistar II Windshield (aka Moe's windshield)

[alanmcorcoran]

Got my windshield today. Had to go somewhere so I put it on sort of quick like, and then, after I got back, effed with it for an hour and a half. Here's what it look's like:



Since there seems to be a great deal of interest in windshields, I'll quickly delve into two aspects of it: Installation and The Effect On The Ride.

Installation: Installation was both easy and, well, difficult. Easy, as in you can get the thing on your bike in about 15 minutes. Difficult, as in, you can then proceed to eff with it for the rest of your natural life. You can screw around with the orientation and position of fork mounts. It is no exaggeration to say there is an infinite amount of adjustments you can make to the fork mounts starting with how far you stick the "L" brackets into the windshield, to the placement of the collar, to the orientation of the connector, to the angle of the "L brackets, to the angle of connector, and so on etc. etc. You can also screw around with the handle bar mounts and there are at least four different areas to mess with there as well.

Effect On The Ride: The top of the windshield, when I first installed it, was about at eyebrow level or slightly higher. This means I am looking through the windshield to see the horizon and the top edge of the windshield cuts right through my plane of vision. (Not real thrilled with this.) The windshield reduces the wind on my upper torso, hands and face to zero (this is good!) However, it introduces a new area of turbulence, best described like the buffeting of a heavy flag in a strong wind, around the sides and back of my head. Flipping up my face shield, I can feel the wind on my temples and above. Quick impression: The windshield sharply reduces "wind chill", especially chest and hands but introduces a new annoyance in the form of re-directed wind that is distracting. I experimented with raising the whole thing up, but then the hand cutouts start to encroach on the hand levers - so I put it back to it's "natural" position.

So far, I'm not that impressed. I like the reduction in chilliness, but I hate the way it looks, I hate the loss of visibility and it doesn't really eliminate the wind. I'll give it a few more days before I take it off, but I think I'm going to go back to no windshield.