Moto Delux bar end mirrors Review

[ThatGuyWithTheDRZSM]

These could really go in any section, but it seems like I see them mainly on street fighter and cafe style bikes, so I put them in the sportbike section...



There are many brands of this style mirror all varying in price, and maybe quality, but these work well enough. I got them on ebay for about $35 by searching "bar end mirrors". They come in black or silver.

The lens is slightly convex - not as convex as the stick-on blind spot mirrors at the auto parts store, just convex enough to give a really good view of what's behind you. I can easily see the entire lane behind me and most of the lane beside me. It takes a little while to get used to the "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" thing due to the convex shape of the glass, but after a couple rides it's second nature.

There are two mounting methods. One method involves a round bar end that the mirror clamps to. The bar end is attached to the handlebar with a bolt and a cone with aluminum sleeves that expand inside the bar as you tighten the bolt. I didn't like this method at all, because if you ever touched the mirror and applied any force in the counter clockwise direction, it would loosen the bolt and loose it's grip on the inside of the bar, allowing the mirror to hang limp from the bar. This happened any time I walked by and bumped it in the garage, or stood up from working on it and hit my head, etc and got really old.

My preferred method, and the only choice I have now that I have the hand guards, is to forget the bar end and clamp the mirrors directly to the bar. Once you tighten them down they are solid as a rock. Much better. They are about 3/8" wide so they wil require that you move your controls inward by that amount to make room, but I couldn't feel a difference.

I've seen them mounted in every possible configuration - pointing inward instead of out, or hanging down below the bar instead of above. I chose mine because the upright seating position of an SM makes the handlebars pretty low, and with the mirrors below the bar they were too far outside my field of vision.

There is another brand called CRG that makes a similar mirror called the Hindsight Lanesplit - the main difference is that there is a hinge in the mirror that allows it to fold inward if the mirror gets bumped. That feature could be nice but they usually go for $75+ EACH (that's right, one mirror, not a pair) and the folding feature, to me, isn't worth the $115 price gap.

[Jeremy]

Joe-

Great writeup, thanks for posting. Just to clarify, did you throw these on to replace your OEM mirrors or in addition to them (i.e. for increased visibility)?

[ThatGuyWithTheDRZSM]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Joe-

Great writeup, thanks for posting. Just to clarify, did you throw these on to replace your OEM mirrors or in addition to them (i.e. for increased visibility)?

I got them as a replacement for the stock ones. The stock ones sat really high off the handlebars and were too closely spaced, so all they were really good for was looking at my elbow/shoulder, unless I twisted my body around to get out of the way.