MRA Vario Touring Extension spoiler install and test ride

The one thing that has been bugging me on the KLR at high speeds is buffeting. The little stock screen is a little too small so I bought the large screen from Kawasaki hoping to would be good to go. It does a great job between 40-60 mph. It's really great at night keeping the bugs off the visor. It's just at the speed of about 70 mph that I get a buffeting that drives me nuts after fifteen minutes.
I've seen a few other KLR people with the MRA spoiler with the MRA screen. To me the stock screen looks the same as the MRA screen but it's smoked. I could care less about the smoked screen and all I want is the spoiler.
Twisted Throttle sells just the spoiler but you have to make a template to figure out what dimension to buy. I'll save you some time and tell you if you have a 2008-2010 you need the VTA4 for your STOCK screen.

The Template is easy to make but you need a yard stick that that uses centimeters.


Once the template is made just put it at the top portion of your screen and dot the places on the cardboard that it contacts the screen and thats the distance you need to order.





I put tape across to make a level area so I don't drill the holes poorly .
I put the tape across the screen so about 7mm is left showing on both sides of the fairing support.
I put measured marks on both sides of the windscreen to use to center the MRA spoiler.

For me it came out to 1 1/2" on both sides. I started with a small drill bit to make pilot and they say use a 6.2mm drill for a final hole, that comes to a 1/4" hole.
If you drill your holes and you find the screen won't line up just take a dremel tool with a very mild grinding tip to fine tune the holes. Use the dremel on very low speeds
Mounted and needs to be cleaned up.
Lowest position.


Middle position.


As high as it goes and it's looking to be about the middle of the road from stock screen to Kawi tall screen. Tomorrow I get to take a little blast to see how it feels! :)


ADDED: Went for a 60+ mile ride down the highway and all I have to say is WOW, it's nice. Really wish I had this the from day one. I tried it all the way down and it was like it wasn't even on the bike. Then all the way up and it feels just like the Kawi tall screen but no annoying buffeting. This is really going to be perfect on the big great lakes tour I'm doing on the first week of June.!!

Cheese trail revisted

Did the Cheese trail again but this time with around maybe twenty bikes! Was a really great day meeting some more people in the Chicagoland dual-sport club.

I think the biggest challenge of the day was just finding a place that had the trail pass stickers. The normal lucky 7 gas station was out after a few of the guys beat us there. So off we went to the farm & fleet and all they had was ATV state passes. We got lucky and one of the guys found another gas station outside of farm & fleet had some left. :)



This is the most dual-sports I have ever seen in one spot.
Some of the guys were really hauling it down the trail and I was not one of them. Later at a gas station off to the side of the trail was a trail cop that stopped and we had a chance to talk. The lowest ticket was about $180!!! :O
Lucky for the head group none of them got caught. I was pretty surprised no one had a tip-over or a little crash.


I should of taken more pics but with my little crappy camera they never come out good.
It was a good long day with about 330 miles on-road and 47 mile off-road. I would of loved to have a small Dual-sport with some big knobby tires. Time to start scanning craigslist!! ;)

Info for the cheese trail.

Spring Tech day!!

The morning didn't start out great and my Dad and I were wondering if anyone was going to show up. The radar was bad but the temps were staring out at 55 degrees. We put up all the canopies and drank coffee while it started to rain.
First person that showed up was a guy named John that really helped out on the last tech day.
I was shocked to see these guy just keep rolling in in the weather we were having. Something like 8-10 KLR in front of the house and it was great to see. It would not of happened without the Chicagoland Dual-sport riders being formed and I was lucky enough for a friend to point it out to me.

All in all I think we did six Doo's, a set of grips that were really glued on, and a set of lowering links. We started the first bike at about 8:30 and went to 5:45.


This is me just amazed at Eric's grips that were SO glued on that the air gun under the grips wouldn't work. I thought I'd show him cool quick trick but not today. The OEM grips were removed in chunks and took some time.












Joe also came back to help out. Thank you!


Trusty Dad to lend me a hand!!
My bikes out to make way for work and it looks like Lily also parked her bike off to the side. :)
Mike made it up from Chillicothe.
Sorry Joe your expression is so funny.

Also thanks again John for jumping in and splitting the doo load!

Bill dropped down from Milwaukee to to get the doo done. Thank for the rotor holder tool!






The second half of the day was like a brand new one. Sun came out as we had lunch and that really took the chill out of me. At least the guys didn't have to also ride home wet.


I want to really thank my friend Tom for borrowing me his canopies.
Also another thanks to John and Joe for doing work and the guys at my work for lending me the small bike jacks even though we never got to use them.


Maybe I'll have another tech day in late September!