Mr.7/11's "Tweak of the Week" #1: Superbike bars vs. Clip-ons

From the first day my bike has been equipped with drag bars, a decision made purely on looks at first I guess.
Then Robby crashed the bike which bent the bars and after fitting the CBR600 front end I fitted the old GSX-R750 clip-ons to create some sort of dragbar effect.
But people kept telling me I should go for a wide superbike handlebar which should provide much better control over the bike.
For those not familiar with the different styles in handlebars... clip-ons are the fork mounted bars as seen on race bikes, dragbars have only two small bends in 'em, are fairly straight and narrow and superbike bars are like the ones seen on motocross bikes... very wide also.

After trying those different configurations here's my experience with them;

So after all the well-meant advice (mainly from Robby and Airhead I decided to give it a go. I bought some superbike bars and some secondhand Raask clamps that fit the 43mm CBR600 forks.
Fitting the new handlebar wasn't very straightforward because the difference in height was about 10cm so I needed to re-rout almost every cable and make a longer brakeline.
After the work was completed it was time for the first "dry-run", sitting on the bike while parked on the paddock-stand and immediately the big difference in body position was very obvious. Normally I had my torso right above the fueltank but now I was sitting straight up.
The next day it was time for a test run and the first time I opened the throttle my head almost snapped off my shoulders... very different indeed. After getting used to it it became clear very fast the bike had completely different handling characteristics after the superbike mod.

Impressions...

- Very sensitive at steering input, the bike never had any problem cornering but now every minute change in tension of an arm muscle results in a change in direction
- Opening the throttle in first three gears means going up and a little forward.
- Front wheel feels very light all of the time and feels very vague in high-speed corners because of lack of weight over the front wheel.
- At high speed (100mph+) it's very hard to hold on and the bike starts "floating" around.

Later the superbike bars became very helpful in retaining full control over the bike when practicing rolling burn-outs.

Conclusion

If you're a real stunt monkey and mainly ride on tight and twisty backroads the superbike bars are the only choice.
I personally find the wide bars a real pain in the arse because I spend a lot of the time battling a RF900 on top speed and my shortened-wheelbase GSX-R becomes way too nervous for smooth cornering.
So for me it's back to the clip-ons.