999 999 Mirrors

Hi James,
the mirrors are secured by a brass hex bolt which is designed to snap off just below the top on impact - it sounds like that is what's happened to yours, and the threaded portion has been left screwed into the mirror housing...?

cheers,
Dom

 

Moto are very helpful

 

The only thing missing from the standard mirrors is the ability to see behind you......I've just got an Oberon bar end mirror for my right side bar end,a good improvement IMO.

 

A good improvement? Not in the style stakes...! Bar-end mirrors look ridiculous on anything other than a street-fighter. IMO :Angelic: How can you do that to such a graceful, stylish machine as the 999/749...? :Facepalm:

I can see perfectly well out of my mirrors - you just have to get your body position right. I think they're better than most bikes I've ridden, and they vibrate less because they're not stuck out on the end of some long stalk like the Fannygale's mirrors. It's a neat design...

 

Sometimes style has to lose out to practicality,i was getting sick of having to perform acrobatics every time I wanted to see that cop car behind me!...

 

Oh - I get it, you're American and you live in The Bronx...!

 

I get how the mirrors on the 999 are often slated. They aren't like the mirrors on, say, an SS or on JIL4, and they need to be used in a different way.

However - I am used to the 999's mirrors and I do not feel that they impair my ability to see behind me. OK, I look a little bit "funky chicken" every few seconds when I am checking behind me but that is a tiny price to pay compared to the huge personal style and majesty I acquire just by being on the bike

They aren't useless but they are different.

 

You should move to West Hertfordshire.

Except the roads are RUBBISH :Facepalm:

 

Domrusty...Maybe there's less of them in the Bronx...I wouldn't know,i do know in the summer they're like flies buzzing round shit here in Lincolnshire!..

 

That's one good thing to be said about my area,the roads are pretty good (outside of the towns).

 

I too have fitted an Oberon Streetfighter mirror, the small version and it's very neat and discreet, it doesn't detract from the style of the bike at all because you don't really see it, unlike the ones that stick horizontally out of the end of the handlebar and look naff.
You can opt whether to fit it in the end of the replacement bar-end or in the top, which is what I did. This way, the mirror only adds a few millimetres to the width of the bike, if that.
it just sits neatly over the outer two knuckles of your right hand and fills in the gap/blindspot immediately to the rear perfectly.
The only real downside is that you need to look well away from straight-ahead to check it.

 

Hmm. To me that sounds far more awkward / dangerous than using the stock mirrors?

And they look like they belong on a child's bicycle. Sorry, but I just don't get it...!

 

Each to his own...

If the funky chicken and stock mirrors give you the confidence of knowing what is behind you that's great, you have no need of an extra mirror. More power to your elbows...

The stock mirrors alone don't give me that confidence though. To me, it feels like driving a car on door-mirrors alone but 10 times worse because you are so much more vulnerable on a bike.
The extra mirror is there to supplement the stock mirrors, not replace them, so I don't use it all the time, just on those occasions when I want to confirm exactly what is behind and it's safe enough to do so. It would be better if it were not so far off the normal eye-line but that's a compromise I have to accept. It's no worse than using those same door mirrors on a car.

As for looking as though it belongs on a child's bicycle, that's your subjective opinion - i don't share it. To me, it looks solid and functional and as though it belongs there.

 

Of course. Mea culpa...

I'm just a bit protective of the 999/749 design, I think it's stunning and the mirrors are part of that: the way the lines blend in with the curves of the front fairing, it's just a cracking piece of styling.

Mirrors on most bikes are mostly an afterthought - stuck out on awkward looking metal stalks - but there's clearly been a lot of effort made to integrate the mirrors on the 999/749. They DO work and the result is also usefully slender and compact for filtering etc.

If you're saying that bar-end mirrors are not even much easier to use then it just makes no sense... IMO, obviously

 

Point made supplementary mirrors makes some sense. I always look over my shoulder if I need to be absolutely certain - I'm not going to trust ANY mirror for that, but for the normal 'scanning the horizon' obs when riding along the stock mirrors work fine for me.

 

I think we probably agree actually.
Being an 'Old Rider', I now lack the flexibility to look over my shoulder easily. The extra mirror is to compensate for that on those occasions when extra certainty is required.

I too love the aesthetics of the 999 and really didn't want to spoil that, which is why I went for such a small, neat solution.
Viewed from any kind of distance, it really doesn't stand out and integrates nicely into the design of the bike.
As my Brother-in-Law would say: It looks like it growed there...

 

At a slight tangent here but something someone said set me off. It concerns the idea of driving a car with only wing mirrors.

I come at this issue as a bike rider of 32 years but a car driver only in the last ten. If I had to choose a car with no wing mirrors or no central rear-view mirror, I'll take a car with wing-mirrors only. Wing mirrors tell me much more about things that are behind me that I need to know about. Someone positioned immediately behind my car is someone I don't really need to pay as much attention to. Someone poised behind me who is about to over- or under- take me is of much more interest.

Naturally, all three mirrors are important and desirable in a car but if I had to choose, I'll take wing mirrors everyday. Perhaps that is more to do with how I first learned to survive the roads - I've ridden bikes for three times as long as I've driven cars. I don't think it is that though.

 

That's a good point Loz. Most of my observation using the mirrors is for generally keeping an eye on my environment: any vehicles approaching behind me that weren't there 30 seconds ago? Etc etc. If I'm about to change lanes or pull out to overtake then I look over my shoulder at my immediate vicinity / risk hotspot, not in my mirrors. I'm not expecting any danger because my regular mirror Obs should mean I'm upto date on what's around me but for the actual manouevre I'm not going to rely on that info, hence the 'lifesaver' over the shoulder.

Ok, so none of that is news to anyone ;-) but a useful distinction.