GS 2-Up Fighter (hopefully)

[amkluttz]

Hi.  I'm new to the board and fairly new to motorcycles in general and have been lurking here for several months.  The search button has been my best friend.  I picked up my GS  just before memorial day this year for $1300 and started learning to ride.  I have since taken the MSF course, gotten gear, and had a lot of fun.  I am from Concord, NC just North of Charlotte.  I have two friends that I ride with locally that have a Triumph and a Buell.  Enough about me...

This is my bike right after I got her.  The paint was pretty rough.



This is how she sits now.



What I have been trying to do is to go with a fighter style.  I have had a lot of different inspirations and have made up my mind and changed it more times than I can count.  Here are a few of my current inspirations...
















So far I have ditched the fairings, the front fender, the rear fender, the yellow paint, and the tail light.  I have also reconfigured my electrics to fit in a box in front of the battery so I could clean up the frame a little.  Haven't had to do much mechanically except change oil and put 2 clutch cables in.  I did put front signals on and some bar end mirrors, neither of which existed when I bought it.  It has a K&N lunchbox but no jet work.  I have a list of things that I want to do to this bike when time/money allows.

I have already purchased a Kat wheel and rotor.  When my current tire is shot I would like to replace it with a 160/60-17 mostly for appearance sake.  I'm hoping to gain a little more tire to corner with as well.  I'm still having trouble knowing what will fit and what won't as I continue to research this.  I would also love to do a R6 shock , progressive springs, drag bars/clip-ons, jets, and something with the gauges.   

So I guess I said all of that to say this...

I really want to do some frame hacking and really turn this thing into a fighter.  I love what has been done to a lot of these bikes but I also want to keep the functionality of having a passenger.  We just bought my wife some gear and she would be fairly angry if I cut her pegs off.  So is this doable?  Does the bike have any chance of looking decent without losing the rear pegs? 

If I wasn't such a wuss I would have already cut the rear frame down (between the passenger seat supports and the grab bar support) but my original thought was that if I ever sell the bike I would like to be able to put it back to stock.  Since my wife seems pretty adamant that I will not be getting a Duc 796 any time soon I'm thinking about just doing what I want with the GS.  I also plan to add an under seat pan so I can store some things like my jacket liner, my papers, and whatever else.  It's already bent up (thanks to  Joe Gibbs racing shop) and I was planning to drill/tap and bolt it to the inside of the frame rail.  I plan to move the seat lock inside of the pan as well but am not sure what I can do about net hooks since I use it so much.  I can't decide whether to lose or keep the front fender as well.  I found out in the rain that it definitely serves a function.   

Last but not least I just can't decide on a paint color.  My original was matte gray like the Triumph Street Triple.  Then I moved to gray/red like the GT3RS.  I now can't decide between satin black with very few red accents, white with black and/or gold accents, or gloss black with flat black and a few red accents.  The frame is staying stock silver as I am too lazy to disassemble the bike to do it the right way and care too much to spray paint it with the motor still intact.

So I guess that's it.  Sorry for such a long post but I just wanted to get some opinions, suggestions, and ideas.

Thanks,

-Andy

Edit:  You can use Google Drive but you have to leave the images open on your computer or the URL refreshes/changes.  I hope photobucket fixes this photo problem because I understand this thread is useless without them.

[Paulcet]

Nope, pics don't work.  You'll have to find the link to the actual .jpg.  Maybe click file|share... Hopefully there is a [img] link.

[Phil B]

yeaaaahhh.. unfortunately i ran into this problem recently too.
(edit.. huh.. I guess you CAN do it. If you ignore the "share" url they claim, and instead "view image", and use that one.
Which is odd, because I could have sworn I tried that myself... sigh..

)

[codajastal]

Here you go




This is how she sits now.

[Phil B]

Nice coda... but you forgot to set width as well :p

[codajastal]

dunno how to?

[Phil B]

(img width=800)

[codajastal]

cool but where do I put the code?

[Phil B]

cool but where do I put the code?

uhhh.. you already put (img) tag in. So just go edit it and change that to (img width=whatever)

[da_fonz]

wow my bike as inspiration? (all black with gsxr600 seat parked next to my wrapped work ute) good luck with it all mate but one word of advice, if you go the bobber tail look make sure you angle up the seat as i have almost slid off the back multiple times with a quick flick of the wrist.



fonz

[amkluttz]

Fonz,

Which one is yours?  I hope you don't mind me using your pics.  I have just been on the hunt for GS fighter pics and am grabbing anything I see of interest.  If yours is the second pic down I was curious how you stayed on the seat.

After finally getting my wife to ride with me last night I realized that 2-up on a GS isn't that awesome.  We'll never be taking long road trips together or anything but it's nice to be able to run to the ice cream shop and back.  I got my wife a full face helmet and I'm not sure if this was a mistake or not.  She says she has to lean way back to allow room between our helmets.  Last night I decided to lean forward a lot more so she wouldn't have to be so uncomfortable.  A set of drag bars or low clip-ons would have been great right about then.

Thanks for the feedback...

-Andy

[amkluttz]

Well....

I know no one is really reading this but I feel like updating just in case someone becomes interested.

I did a lot of prep last night and ended up putting some paint down today.  I painted the tank, front fender, and the rusty rearsets today.  I ended up deciding that I wanted to do a gloss black tank with a satin black stripe.  I laid down the satin black over the entire tank (and everything else mentioned above) as a base coat and had planned to tape off, scuff and then lay down the gloss black.  After seeing the entire tank in satin I decide to flip-flop my scheme so now the plan will be to add a 2"-3" center stripe and two 1/4" stripes on either side in gloss black. 

My original plan was to do red accents but I feel it has been done to death.  It's still a possibility but I keep toying with the idea of a bronze or gold accent.  I know that has been done as well so I'm going to keep thinking.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be great.

-Andy

[amkluttz]

I know this thread is basically dead but I hate reading through an entire thread and finding it was abandoned without a conclusion.  I know it's not a great picture but this is what I ended up with.  The accents just ended up being gloss black and the silver of the frame.  I couldn't find a color I was happy with and really enjoy the look of the bike now.  It is much much better than the yellow.

There are still a few things to touch up like the gas flip cover but it will get done some day.

[ThatOtherGuy]

glad you posted actually, wasn't aware of this thread.  yesterday I decided I was going to repaint my bike from yellow coincidentally, to black in a matt colour hopefully.  you just convinced me with this thread.  Thanks.

[amkluttz]

I'm glad it made a difference.  The main color is a satin black because I felt flat was just too, well, flat.

[Funderb]

The main color is a satin black because I felt flat was just too, well, flat.

I been sayin that shaZam! for years. my man. Satin is the way to go.