Vetter Accessories

Vetter Accessories

EVALUATIONS

WINDJAMMER FAIRING VETTER SADDLEBAGS

Soon after we were exposed to Kawasaki's behemoth KZ1300, it became clear that this megalocycle was no hot rod. It was a luxury touring sportster, more a Ferrari Daytona than a Ford Cobra. It had power but it had a lot more, like smoothness, easy shifting, and, we thought, good load carrying capacity.

The other big touring bikes sold in this country, like the Honda Gold Wing and the Yamaha XS1100, are most commonly seen adorned with fairings and saddlebags. It’s not that the motorcycles don’t work without the accessories, just that the people who buy large, powerful, comfortable motorcycles like to equip them for touring. Because the owners use the motorcycles so equipped, we wanted to use the Kawasaki with typical touring accessories installed and see how it worked.

Kawasaki will be introducing its own fairings and saddlebags for the KZ1300, but the products weren’t available when we had the bike. Enter Craig Vetter. Vetter Corp. won’t be marketing fairings and saddlebags for the KZ1300, but did offer to adapt existing accessories to fit the bike so we could both evaluate the accessories and see how the mighty Kawasaki worked with touring accessories added.

There are a few difficulties in adapting accessories to the big Thirteen. Most obvious is the huge gas tank which is wider than any existing frame-mount fairings. Standard fairing mounts couldn’t clamp onto the frame because the radiator was mounted where the fairing mount usually goes.

When we arrived at the new Vetter factory in San Luis Obispo, California, a couple of hundred miles up the coast from the Cycle World offices, the fairing saddlebags had been installed. The fairing had been trimmed back where it fits around the gas tank. New Series IV mounts, made of flat steel and welded up to fit around the radiator, held the fairing. The saddlebags mounted easily, the halfinch steel frame bolting to the end of the frame and the passenger footpegs.

After gassing up the 1300, the bike was ridden to a favorite winding road in Central California for pictures. On the way to the road, the rider was especially cautious to look for any flaw in the motorcycle’s handling caused by the addition of 56 lb. of accessories. He didn't notice any. Riding up and down the road, scraping one side and then the other while flinging 760 lb. of machinery back and forth, it became apparent that Kawasaki’s latest King Kongmobile was less affected by the added accessories than any other big bike we’ve tested.

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On any other combination we’ve tried, there have been noticeable sacrifices in performance when a fairing and saddlebags were installed, but an acceptable sacrifice when considering the additional comfort provided. On the Kawasaki there was no noticeable sacrifice. With 120 bhp, the Kawasaki rolled along like a steam roller, with fairing or without it. The air forks sunk a little further with the fairing aboard during stops but another 2 psi of air brought the performance back to normal. The rear shocks, which had been too stiff for comfort unloaded, became more compliant with the additional load.

If anything, the Kawasaki’s overall performance had improved. All the Thirteen’s virtues remained plus we had the convenience of the saddlebags and the protection of the fairing.

Riding back down the California coast, staying mostly on two-lane back roads, we were able to cruise the Kawasaki at extralegal speeds in complete security. At 80 mph the bike wasn’t breathing hard and neither were we. Heading up a steep hill, the kind that slows Volkswagens down to 30 mph and forces 750 riders to drop down a gear or two, we opened up the throttle and watched the 1300 silently accelerate up to 100 mph. Down the other side the road became twisty and the powerful brakes and stable handling allowed us to keep up the fast pace without any excitement.

Three hundred miles later, with one gas stop in between, the fully adorned Kawasaki was back, the rider relaxed and both were ready for more.

Together, the Kawasaki and Vetter products worked admirably. It’s not a matter of one being superior; neither have serious flaws. The combination was completely satisfying.

It’s a rare person who can make form follow function and come up with a stylish product. To do so requires tremendous ingenuity and an ability to think differently. No one in the motorcycle industry is more creative in design than Craig Vetter. It shows in his work.

A dozen years ago Vetter began selling fairings. His fairings were different from anything else on the market at that time, they were full fairings, extending in one piece from the windshield dow n to a shield around the engine. They were sleek looking fairings, compact and rakish. Beginning with that original fairing, Vetter gradually modified it, expanding it in width, making it more upright but always retaining a characteristic line. Finally the design evolved into the Windjammer fair ing in 1970. Gone was the lower half of the full fairing which wrapped around the engine. Instead, the Windjammer ex tended only as low as the bottom of the gas tank on the motorcycles it mounted on. There also were provisions for installing lowers, or extensions for more protection.

Beginning with the first Windjammer. the Vetter fairing has been the uncontested standard of the industry. After the Wind jammer became a sales success, several other companies produced their own ver sion. some of which were exact duplicates of the Vetter shape though not its equal.

The original Windjammer was a success because it offered an original style. excel lent protection from the elements, special conveniences for touring motorcyclists. and unsurpassed quality. With a package like that. it couldn't go wrong.

Three models later, there's the Wind jammer IV. The shape is the same soft wedge first seen on the 1967 Vetter and later recognized in the Windjammer. Oril\ the details have changed. Now the signal lights are molded flush into the leading edge of the fairing. Beside the signal lights are housings for auxiliary horns. The headlight has been moved into a separate housing in front which can be adjusted up or down by turning a knob on the dashboard. Over the righthand storage area is a new molded cover, closed with a lock. Over the lefthand opening there's an upholstered cover with a pocket inside. There are still the two vents in the wind shield and chrome edging first offered on the 1973 Windjammer 11, but now the Windjammer is made from a molded plas tic and finished with a hard, glossy surface in front and a wrinkle-finish on the inside. A cigarette lighter is now standard equipmen t.

Vetter fairings have always mounted to a motorcycle's frame, rather than onto the forks. And most Vetter mounts were simi lar: steel rods clamped onto frame down tubes curved up and held flat steel arms which carried the fairing. The mounting system was a good one, easily adaptable to a wide variety of motorcycles, and soon most other fairing manufacturers either copied the Vetter mounts or bought Vetter mounts. The first deviation from that stan dard mount came out last year when Honda introduced the CX500 which had no frame downtubes. Vetter went to a collection of plates which mounted to the frame under the gas tank.

Now on the Windjammer IV all the mounting systems are being revised to what Vetter calls a tuhuIar~crossbar system made of steel tube and plates. The most noticeable difference with the new mounts is a bar extending from the lower mount up to the dashboard of the fairing on the inside, adding reinforcement to the mount and eliminating some of the motion of the fairing over rough roads.

The new mounting system didn't just happen. Vetter has designed a paintshaker fairing mount tester big enough to shake motorcycles. Besides the shaking tester, there is a railroad track beside the new Vetter facility in San Luis Obispo. California. Test riders run fairing equipped motorcycles up and down the tracks, over the ties, until something breaks. It's all good testing and it's improv ing the product.

To evaluate the Vetter products and the Kawasaki 1300 as a touring bike, the two were put together. Because the Kawasaki's foot-and-a-half wide gas tank is wider than any existing fairings. mounting a fairing on the bike required some extra effort, in this case trimming the inside edges of the fairing down enough so it would fit around the Kawasaki.

When the trimming was done, the mounting was simple enough. New brack ets had to be made, which may change before they go into production. depending on test results. The combination worked well enough.

In standard form, the 1300 is a huge hulk of a motorcycle, looking even bigger with the squared-off styling of the head light and gas tank. With the Windjammer installed the effect changed. though the bike still appeared massive. If anything. the addition took an edge off the harsh design of the Kawasaki.

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Styling aside, the Vetter fairing has re tained nearly all its earlier virtues. The new mounting system kept the fairing stiff and stable past the ton until a weld on the prototype mount cracked and then there was some motion in the fairing.

Of course the main selling point of all the large touring fairings is protection and the Windjammer offers as much protec lion as anything we've tried. The only real wind on a rider behind a Windjammer comes to the legs and that can be cut with the installation of the lowers. When the temperature climbed up to 700. the wind shield vents were opened but they didn't provide more than fresh air, certainly not a breeze. Windshield height was about right for a 6-foot-2 rider, probably too tall for a shorter rider. That was with a standard windshield: other windshields, both lower and higher are available.

Utility has been both increased and decreased by the changes in the Windjam mer IV. By incorporating the signal lights into the fairing. rather than use original equipment lights mounted on stalks, the interior room in the Windjammer has been markedly decreased. The test fairing didn't have the optional twin Fiamm horns, but had they been installed, storage room would have been cut further. The pocket on the left-hand cover proved handy for carrying small items which tend to get lost among the other stuff inside a fairing and the locking cover adds security for those who like to keep a camera inside the fairing. There is room in the Vetter for most compact 35mm SLRs. b~' the way. but the largest SLR cameras wouldn't fit under the locking cover.

As far as the effect on motorcycle han dling, it is difficult to judge on the Ka wasaki. With a full package of Vetter accessories on the bike, it was routinely ridden around corners of varying cam bers and surfaces with complete control. scrap ing the muffler on the right side and the centerstand on the left side, with no ill effect on handling, Installation of a fairing. however, does change a rider's perception of a motorcycle's handling, particularly with a large fairin~ such as the Vetter.

Although the addition of a 26.5 lb. fairing and brackets to a 700 lb. motorcycle can't have too great an effect, the dif ference between riding with and without the fairing was noticeable, more so when the fairing was removed than when it was added. Without the fairing. the Kawasaki felt slightly more nimble.

With the number of Vetter lookalikes on the market today. the Windjammer has lost some of its novelty, but none of its usefulness. It still offers style. protection. and convenience, plus excellent quality. It's not cheap. but the best never is.

Optional equipment includes custom painting to match standard motorcycle colors, matching tumblers so the locking cover will open with the same key as the saddlebags, a Bosch quartz halogen headlight. Fiamm horns. Cycle-Sound mount for radios, tape units or CBs, tank bags up to 36 liter capacity which mount to the fairing mounts, and the Cycle-Cover which protects the fairing and part of a motorcycle.

Price of the black, white or silver-colored Windjammer is $347. The brackets are another $39.95. Color matched Windjammers sell for $412 and can be purchased without the hardware.

Heretofore saddlebags innovation consisted in of motorcycle detachable saddlebags and better latches. Since the first fiberglass saddlebags (discussed elsewhere in this issue), the basic shape and form of saddlebags has been constant: a box. Craven made the box detachable and Krauser made the box attractive and Samsonite (aka John Warren) made the box look like a suitcase and made it go on and off easier. But it was still a box.

The people who make the boxes and the people who use the boxes have generally been pleased because the boxes do what they are intended to do, i.e. carry lots of stuff. Form follows function and all that rot aside, there are those who say motorcycles have style and that boxes have no style and to hang a box on a motorcycle just is not acceptable.

Enter Craig Vetter. Like everything else Vetter has done, his saddlebags are original. They don’t look like boxes and they don’t look like what anybody else has ever done. It is impossible to describe their shape, as there has never been anything that shape before. When mounted on a motorcycle, and viewed from the side, they are mostly rectangular in outline. From behind they are sort of triangular, but w ith about two extra sides which should make them pentagon-shaped, but they're not. All over the bags there are indentations and bulges and odd shapes, most of which don't seem to be there for any reason. Until you look closely. 4

When Henry Ford was asked by a designer how' far the back seat should be behind the front seat on the Model T sedan. Henry said “far enough so a farmer can get a milk can between them.’’ If the Vetter saddlebags were designed around any one item, it would probably be a. motorcycle helmet.

One of the motorcycle world’s greatest conveniences is to be able to store helmets in saddlebags. First time it was tried with the Vetter bags, an open face, large size helmet fit in perfectly and it appeared that the shape of the saddlebag was designed around the helmet. When we checked back'' at the office we found a standard size full coverage helmet would just fit. but that a large size full coverage helmet wouldn’t fit easily and had to be forced into the saddlebag. Too bad this wasn’t tried early on in the design, as the changes would be minimal to allow a full coverage, large size* helmet into the saddlebags.

The shape otherwise is well thought out. The inside edge of the bags, w'hich fits into the carrier, is a rectangular protrusion with an extra bulge at the back end. past w here a sprocket or drive shaft housing would fit. Other indentations allow for upswept ex-^ hausts and for the signal lights to be relocated at the back of the saddlebags and still fit into the design.

One part of the shape which had us confused at first was a recess at the top of the saddlebags where the carrying strap fits. It just didn't make any sense to us to have the recess there, taking away room from the inside. Nothing appeared to fit into the recess and we thought it was waste space, until we carried the bags.

When the saddlebags are mounted on the bike, there’s a small bottom area, half a foot wide, which has feet molded into it. But when the bags are removed from the bike, they don’t want to sit on the feet, but want to fall partially over and rest on a slanted lower side. Rather than being unbalanced, that’s the natural repose of the bags, and the indented carrying straps are then on a flat surface, inviting people to carry them with the opening side towards them. The peculiar shape is there to make carrying the bags easier.

The unusual shape makes evaluating the capacity difficult. In displacement, it's about 1.25 cu.ft. per bag. Useful room is about 1 cu.ft. Getting to that room is made difficult by the opening. Rather than have an entire side open, the Vetter bags have a cover over the outside surface. The cover is finished differently than the rest of the bag. having a smooth, hard, glossy finish that can be painted to match any motorcycle. Inside the cover there’s an opening, nearly rectangular and measuring about 9 x 12 in. The largest diagonal measurement is 16 in. so some items which can be carried in a smaller saddlebag can’t be carried in the Vetter bags, such as a bow' saw' one of the editors carries with him when he goes camping. On the other hand, the maximum thickness of the bags is 12 in., certainly wider than any other saddlebag and the extra thickness means some large which can’t be carried in largersaddlebags can be carried in the Vetter bags.

Because the opening door into the saddlebags covers a flat surface with a raised lip inside, and has a rubber gasket on the edge of the door, we expected superior waterproofing. We didn’t get it. It turns out the body of the saddlebags wasn’t entirely flat and the mating surfaces didn't come together well enough to keep water out during rainy day riding.

Like many modern saddlebags, the Vetters are made from a molded plastic, finished with a wrinkle surface which looks good and doesn’t show wear or dirt as much as a smooth surface. The material is 'A in. thick for most of the body. Because of the unusual shape, there are few' large, flat sections. That means the saddlebags are much stronger than the usual boxshaped saddlebags made from the same material, a definite plus. The design takes advantage of the material used for construction and compensates for the weaknesses of the material, which is good design.

Mounts for the saddlebags appear, at first, to be rather conventional. A prong on the forward end of the inner surface fits into a receptacle on the steel tube frame. Then an arrow-shaped rod fits into a spring clip on the rear of the frame and the bags are locked onto the frame. Quick and easy. But besides the front and rear hooks, there are three rubber pads on the frame, on which the bags ride. The rubber pads form a suspension between the frame and the saddlebags, isolating vibration. Vetter calls the mounting system a Floating Mount. Having not tried any other saddlebags on the test bike, it’s difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the rubber bushings, but the connections hooked up easily and worked flawlessly.

One key unlocks the bags from the frame by spreading the spring clip on the frame. It’s the same key which opens the side covers and it’s possible to get a matching tumbler on the side cover on the fairing, meaning one key for all accessories, a good idea. We tried prying the spring clip apart with the can opener on a pockety knife and took half a minute to disconnect a saddlebag. Of course no saddlebag on a motorcycle is completely secure, but the Vetter is less secure than average.

Much of the appeal of the Vetter saddlebags comes from their style. Sitting by1 themselves, detached from a motorcycle, the style didn't make any sense. Mounted on the KZ1300, with a Windjammer fair-^ ing on the front, the saddlebags looked at home. The unorthodox shape definitely fits with the Kawasaki’s angular shaped gas tank. There's a matching Tailtrunk, also with sloping sides, which goes nicely with the saddlebags.

Compared to other saddlebags, the Vetters appear wide and they are, at 39.5 in/* across at the widest part on the Kawasaki, about a half foot w ider than normal. They also mount high and with the sloped-up. lower edge don't interfere with cornering clearance.

Overall, we enjoyed using the Vetter saddlebags. They are convenient and at-4 tractive, didn't interfere with the motorcycle or the rider, and worked superbly on a day-to-day basis.

Price of the Vetter saddlebags is $231.65 for black, white, or silver and $299 if color matched to standard motorcycle colors. The mounting hardware costs another* $57.35 for all motorcycles except the Honda CX500, for which brackets cost $48.

Information on the Vetter accessories is available through most motorcycle dealers, or through Vetter Corp., 1150 Laurel Lane. San Luis Obispo, Calif. 93401. (805)«» 541-2900.