Like others have done before me I am rebuilding my virago xv920. I'll put some pictures up tonight.
My background (feel free to skip ahead): I have owned the bike for years and at one point the bike was my primary mode of transportation because I was broke and it was easy on gas. I grew up riding but it has never really been my “lifestyle”, I rode an antiquated hand me down XL70 around my yard from age 7 through middle school but never got into modern, long travel bikes or racing. My father always owned cruisers or touring bikes and bought an xv920 as a spare bike so my brother or I could join him on rides. An afternoon or day long was my typical riding. My father added saddlebags and a hideous fairing as he thought the bike should be as utilitarian as his FLHT. I kind of inherited the bike and road it a lot through college (each saddlebag can hold a 30 pack if allowed to stick out the top). I rode it intermittently after college and very little after I got married as my wife has no interest then I promptly had two little girls making my wife even less excited about me riding. 5 years ago I just cancelled the insurance and registration and mothballed the thing. Recently I good friend of mine inherited a bike and needs someone to ride with under his learners and get some miles under his belt. My wife and I came to an agreement that I would not commute on the bike and increase my life insurance in exchange for putting the bike back on the road. So now that I am not as broke as college I wanted to fix a couple issues with the bike like the slipping clutch, horrible handlebars and requisite tires, battery and carb cleaning. I turned online to research a clutch upgrade and stumbled upon what others have done with this platform.
I love the aesthetics of what some folks have done with this platform and admit I never could have pictured it on my own. Like many others I find the clean lines of the Hageman build as an inspiration. I am not planning an exact copy of Greg’s build but that is the general direction I am headed with this. I am accustomed to a bike being very functional so this will an iterative process figuring out saddle, peg and handlebar configuration before messing around with tank, instruments, lighting and aesthetics stuff. I hope that a forward leaning posture will make it comfortable enough to ride without a fairing without killing my neck. I am building a new sub-frame to raise the seat height, the current seat and peg positions hurt my hips after 30 miles or so. I will likely go through a couple of configurations before settling in on a final seat position and won’t mess with the tank till I am done with that. I don’t plan to go the Benelli tank route, it looks great but I want to retain or increase fuel capacity and that tank has been done enough. I am leaning toward buying a second stock tank to chop up and see what I can come up with or a tr1 tank if I can find one reasonably. Eventually I plan to do something with the wheels as well but that may happen later, I am a little torn on this. I would like to go to a 18" or 17” diameter rims front and rear to quicken up the steering and increase the effective gearing eventually but don’t want to rush into it. Getting the wheels settle early will help with my geometry and cockpit configuration stuff as well as avoid buying two sets of tires but wheel options are so limited that I will have to take my time shopping if I don’t want to drop a ton of cash. I am not going to mess with the frame. I will secure the front of the new sub-frame with the forward shock mount bolt somehow.
My background (feel free to skip ahead): I have owned the bike for years and at one point the bike was my primary mode of transportation because I was broke and it was easy on gas. I grew up riding but it has never really been my “lifestyle”, I rode an antiquated hand me down XL70 around my yard from age 7 through middle school but never got into modern, long travel bikes or racing. My father always owned cruisers or touring bikes and bought an xv920 as a spare bike so my brother or I could join him on rides. An afternoon or day long was my typical riding. My father added saddlebags and a hideous fairing as he thought the bike should be as utilitarian as his FLHT. I kind of inherited the bike and road it a lot through college (each saddlebag can hold a 30 pack if allowed to stick out the top). I rode it intermittently after college and very little after I got married as my wife has no interest then I promptly had two little girls making my wife even less excited about me riding. 5 years ago I just cancelled the insurance and registration and mothballed the thing. Recently I good friend of mine inherited a bike and needs someone to ride with under his learners and get some miles under his belt. My wife and I came to an agreement that I would not commute on the bike and increase my life insurance in exchange for putting the bike back on the road. So now that I am not as broke as college I wanted to fix a couple issues with the bike like the slipping clutch, horrible handlebars and requisite tires, battery and carb cleaning. I turned online to research a clutch upgrade and stumbled upon what others have done with this platform.
I love the aesthetics of what some folks have done with this platform and admit I never could have pictured it on my own. Like many others I find the clean lines of the Hageman build as an inspiration. I am not planning an exact copy of Greg’s build but that is the general direction I am headed with this. I am accustomed to a bike being very functional so this will an iterative process figuring out saddle, peg and handlebar configuration before messing around with tank, instruments, lighting and aesthetics stuff. I hope that a forward leaning posture will make it comfortable enough to ride without a fairing without killing my neck. I am building a new sub-frame to raise the seat height, the current seat and peg positions hurt my hips after 30 miles or so. I will likely go through a couple of configurations before settling in on a final seat position and won’t mess with the tank till I am done with that. I don’t plan to go the Benelli tank route, it looks great but I want to retain or increase fuel capacity and that tank has been done enough. I am leaning toward buying a second stock tank to chop up and see what I can come up with or a tr1 tank if I can find one reasonably. Eventually I plan to do something with the wheels as well but that may happen later, I am a little torn on this. I would like to go to a 18" or 17” diameter rims front and rear to quicken up the steering and increase the effective gearing eventually but don’t want to rush into it. Getting the wheels settle early will help with my geometry and cockpit configuration stuff as well as avoid buying two sets of tires but wheel options are so limited that I will have to take my time shopping if I don’t want to drop a ton of cash. I am not going to mess with the frame. I will secure the front of the new sub-frame with the forward shock mount bolt somehow.