Charlie Keefe

VX with Bandit Fairing

The weather protection is fairly good. I am 6' tall. I have raised the bars about 1 1/2" and the wind blast hits me a the nose level. I have added an aftermarket screen by Rifle and that raises the wind from the neck area. The air comes across very clean and has very little buffeting at the helmet. The wind just touches the outside of my shoulders and hand protection is totally absent. The riding position on the VX behind the fairing is almost identical to that of riding the Bandit with the same fairing(except for the addition of the Rifle shield). Julie rarely rides pillion so I dont have a good answer to the question of what the fairing is like for the Pillion.

Mounting the fairing basically required fabricating a mount on the down tube holding the steering bearings. I did this with 1 3/4" heavy duty muffler clamps. I then bolted steel angle iron to that and bolted the main fairing bracket to the angle iron. This allowed for minor variations in height as well as forward/aft positioning. I mounted the fairing as rearward as possible so that the gauges turn as a close as possible lock to lock. The sides of the fairing (near the tank) are mounted with small aluminum straps.

The bags are Givi 36L So what I now have is a light weight sport touring machine. I had originally desired a ST1100 Honda but I prefer a bike with less mass. I do wish the VX had another 25 hp (really, another 50 would be nice !) but the bike does my 300-600 mile days very well. And the occasional 1000 mile days as well.


If you have any more questions, feel free to write.

Charlie......in beautiful North Carolina

A pic of Charlie and  Julie.

Taken at the TWO during the VX shindig  May 1999.

She rides a Honda Hawk GT650. What a life !!!