astroman
Member
Finally getting around to posting these pictures. I took a week and headed west from Yokohama to Shirahama in Wakayama Prefecture; then to Kumano in Aichi Prefecture; and finally a couple of days in Kakegawa in Shizuoka Prefecture. About 1500km total.
The first day was almost continuous rain. I was really glad I'd put the Madstad shield on. My 20+ year-old Aerostich (and 15+ year-old Tourmaster rain jacket over that) did eventually get wet, but not as quickly as if I'd just had the tiny stock windshield.
Gas mileage averaged 70–75mpg. The bike ran great, as always. I'm approaching just 15,000km on the odometer.
I have some comments about a couple new or newish accessories I've added over the last few months:
Madstad windscreen: I ordered the 18" version. This ended up being just right for me I think, top edge of the shield is at about chin height on me (5'10", maybe 30" inseam). Originally I wanted to get this before last winter. Since we don't really get snow in Yokohama, I thought the bigger screen could extend my riding season to year-round. I imagined I would swap the Madstad back to the stock screen during our stupidly hot summer months. Madstad installation was not difficult, but just annoying enough that I probably wouldn't bother changing back to the stock screen.
In any case, there's still a fair amount of air circulating behind the Madstad (in a good way), while the increased height and width vs. stock was a huge improvement at highway speeds (100–120kph). No helmet buffeting, quieter, and less fatigue on the highway compared to stock. I have the 18" screen adjusted to the tallest setting, and angled at max vertical . . . so maybe I could have got the 20", which would have given me more options to play with rake angle and height. But having stuff shipped to Japan is expensive and a hassle, so I've become more mellow about little things like that. I'm not sure what exactly the side "flaps" are doing, but they're not hurting anything so I'll leave them on. (Site flap mounts separately, and can be removed without taking off the whole windshield—clever.) Finally, the people at Madstad were super helpful over email figuring out shipping costs—originally their site's cart said they couldn't ship to my address.
Ram Mounts X-grip phone mount: I bought the model RAM-HOL-UN7-400U, which has a clamp that fits to a horizontal bar. I had to rig up a not-so-pretty setup on the new Madstad so I could have the phone I use as a GPS mounted just below eye level. Overall this is really solid, and since I'm using an old/extra phone, I'm not too concerned about vibration; but the rubber band included for additional security is already showing signs of wear. I bought 2 extras for backup. Aside from the rubber band issue, I'm really happy with this so far.
Dale's rack: I had bought this in ~January 2021 (because I had a feeling Dale wouldn't be making these forever), and finally installed it last September. While I agree with others here that unstrapping cargo to get to the gas tank is ultimately "no big deal," I have to say that it's a huge quality of life improvement to not have to do that.
Last fall I was on the road camping for 2.5 weeks and had a giant, heavy bag strapped to the Dale's rack. It was great to have a really flat and stable platform for all that weight, and to also not have to touch it while traveling (reducing the chances of forgetting to re-tighten straps, etc. after a gas stop). I took it off last week so my wife could ride pillion, it was an easy switch. Depending on your passenger's weight, you could maybe even put some kind of cushion on the Dale's rack, it would probably be a more comfortable seat than the stock passenger seat.
Drive recorder/dash cam: Last summer I installed a Mitsuba EDR-21a drive recorder (about $250USD at the time on Amazon Japan). Mitsuba makes a lot of electronics, and has a good reputation in Japan. Installation was not too bad (I already had an Eastern Beaver 4CS fuse panel kit installed), but the documentation is all in Japanese. I was able to break the password protection of the PDF manual and run the text through Google Translate, which helped with installation and setup. Honestly, kind of a pain in the butt, but I wanted the option of domestic warranty support in case there was a problem with the unit.
I finally pulled the SD card the other day to confirm this has actually been recording—it has—and image quality is excellent. (My nightmare scenario is getting into an accident here and watching my already-imperfect Japanese crumble while I try to explain my side of the story to the police . . . I'm hoping the video evidence will save me the trouble.) Conclusion: unfortunately, because of the Japanese-only documentation, as well as the fact that this only seems to be sold domestically, I can't really recommend this for someone outside Japan. They have an updated version, the EDR-22, that has a much-smaller (and supposedly waterproof) main unit that can be mounted on the outside of the bike. Pretty cool.
The first day was almost continuous rain. I was really glad I'd put the Madstad shield on. My 20+ year-old Aerostich (and 15+ year-old Tourmaster rain jacket over that) did eventually get wet, but not as quickly as if I'd just had the tiny stock windshield.
Gas mileage averaged 70–75mpg. The bike ran great, as always. I'm approaching just 15,000km on the odometer.
I have some comments about a couple new or newish accessories I've added over the last few months:
Madstad windscreen: I ordered the 18" version. This ended up being just right for me I think, top edge of the shield is at about chin height on me (5'10", maybe 30" inseam). Originally I wanted to get this before last winter. Since we don't really get snow in Yokohama, I thought the bigger screen could extend my riding season to year-round. I imagined I would swap the Madstad back to the stock screen during our stupidly hot summer months. Madstad installation was not difficult, but just annoying enough that I probably wouldn't bother changing back to the stock screen.
In any case, there's still a fair amount of air circulating behind the Madstad (in a good way), while the increased height and width vs. stock was a huge improvement at highway speeds (100–120kph). No helmet buffeting, quieter, and less fatigue on the highway compared to stock. I have the 18" screen adjusted to the tallest setting, and angled at max vertical . . . so maybe I could have got the 20", which would have given me more options to play with rake angle and height. But having stuff shipped to Japan is expensive and a hassle, so I've become more mellow about little things like that. I'm not sure what exactly the side "flaps" are doing, but they're not hurting anything so I'll leave them on. (Site flap mounts separately, and can be removed without taking off the whole windshield—clever.) Finally, the people at Madstad were super helpful over email figuring out shipping costs—originally their site's cart said they couldn't ship to my address.
Ram Mounts X-grip phone mount: I bought the model RAM-HOL-UN7-400U, which has a clamp that fits to a horizontal bar. I had to rig up a not-so-pretty setup on the new Madstad so I could have the phone I use as a GPS mounted just below eye level. Overall this is really solid, and since I'm using an old/extra phone, I'm not too concerned about vibration; but the rubber band included for additional security is already showing signs of wear. I bought 2 extras for backup. Aside from the rubber band issue, I'm really happy with this so far.
Dale's rack: I had bought this in ~January 2021 (because I had a feeling Dale wouldn't be making these forever), and finally installed it last September. While I agree with others here that unstrapping cargo to get to the gas tank is ultimately "no big deal," I have to say that it's a huge quality of life improvement to not have to do that.
Last fall I was on the road camping for 2.5 weeks and had a giant, heavy bag strapped to the Dale's rack. It was great to have a really flat and stable platform for all that weight, and to also not have to touch it while traveling (reducing the chances of forgetting to re-tighten straps, etc. after a gas stop). I took it off last week so my wife could ride pillion, it was an easy switch. Depending on your passenger's weight, you could maybe even put some kind of cushion on the Dale's rack, it would probably be a more comfortable seat than the stock passenger seat.
Drive recorder/dash cam: Last summer I installed a Mitsuba EDR-21a drive recorder (about $250USD at the time on Amazon Japan). Mitsuba makes a lot of electronics, and has a good reputation in Japan. Installation was not too bad (I already had an Eastern Beaver 4CS fuse panel kit installed), but the documentation is all in Japanese. I was able to break the password protection of the PDF manual and run the text through Google Translate, which helped with installation and setup. Honestly, kind of a pain in the butt, but I wanted the option of domestic warranty support in case there was a problem with the unit.
I finally pulled the SD card the other day to confirm this has actually been recording—it has—and image quality is excellent. (My nightmare scenario is getting into an accident here and watching my already-imperfect Japanese crumble while I try to explain my side of the story to the police . . . I'm hoping the video evidence will save me the trouble.) Conclusion: unfortunately, because of the Japanese-only documentation, as well as the fact that this only seems to be sold domestically, I can't really recommend this for someone outside Japan. They have an updated version, the EDR-22, that has a much-smaller (and supposedly waterproof) main unit that can be mounted on the outside of the bike. Pretty cool.
