"Patent Pending"

 

Reviews

City Bike Magazine,
By Maynard Hershon.

I just installed and test-rode the Bar Snake, a solid rubber tube you insert into your handlebar. Perhaps you noticed the mention in a previous CITYBIKE. The people who make the Bar Snake claim it lowers the perceptible vibration in your handlebar 50 to 80 percent.

 My Kawasaki's engine is rubber-mounted but the bars still buzz at speed, eventually numbing even my steel-sinewed Real Man's hands. The Bar Snake seemed like a good idea to me.

 Installing the Snake takes a half-hour or so. If you can remove your left-hand grip without cutting it, all you need comes in the package, except grease and spray lube.

 I got help from my friends at Berkeley Yamaha, without whom I would have to quit riding. One guy (Scott Dunlavey) pulled the wire attached to the Snake while another (me) fed the Snake smoothly into the opposite end of the bar, preventing the bar-end from cutting the rubber.

 A third guy, ol' Bouncin' Bob Nichols, braced the front end of the bike while we fed and pulled the snake through. Two of us would have been enough, I think, but we had fun.

 Installing the Bar Snake is a kind of a fun job. It's not like other mechanical tasks one does around motorcycles; it's organic, in a way. The tube fits tightly into the bar. You greased it heavily and spray the inside of the bar with silicone or Triflow, some kind of lube. The Bar Snake sorta glides in there as you pull, kinda sensually, if you catch my meaning.

 Does it work? Well, I think it does, on my bike. I rode about 60 miles today with the Bar Snake installed. At freeway speeds, between 4,000 and 5,500 rpm, my bars felt steadier, less buzzy. As if they thought my motor was smoother.

 The bars on my Kawasaki are short and rigidly mounted. Longer bars would vibrate more and would house more Bar Snake; you might feel a more dramatic difference. Each bike would be different, I think.

 Around town, you don't notice buzzy bars much and, on my bike, the change isn't night-and-day, even on the freeway. Still, I could easily feel a difference and I liked it. Bar Snakes are definitely worth the price. Oh, I forgot to mention that - and this must be the acid test &emdash; the images in my bar-mounted mirrors are suddenly clearer: Bar Snake must work.

 What a coincidence. A roommate during my college years was nicknamed the Bar Snake for his predatory practices at the local watering holes on Friday nights. Unlike this gentleman, the Bar Snake from C. P. Products looks as though it may actually have some intrinsic value. The Bar Snake is a length of precisely gauged rubber which is tightly installed inside a tubular motorcycle handlebar to damp out resonate vibration.

 Vibration isn't usually a serious problem among today's bikes, but the high frequency, hand-numbing variety appears occasionally and can be annoying. If the Bar Snake can reduce this, it will be a worthwhile accessory. I used my BMW R80 Boxer as a test vehicle. The handlebars and engine are both solid-mounted, so the engine pecularities are transmitted right to my hands. To measure the vibration before and after, I attached a felt pen to the end of the let handlebar after removing the grip, and measuring the arc drawn on a card as the handlebar vibrated with the engine. My tests were done at 1,200 RPM (idle), 3,000 RPM and 7,500 RPM (redline). To prevent the damping effect of my hands from interfering with the test results, I taped a lever to the throttle and activated it with a length of string.

 Next I attached a sound-pressure-level meter to the handlebars, and recorded the readings in decibels at these same engine speeds. The meter's pickup was shielded from external noise with a chrome-alloy-steel damping sleeve. In other words, I stuck the microphone into a six-point socket from my took kit and then taped the socket to the handlebar. This way I could measure the intensity of the vibration. Finally I installed the Bar Snake and repeated all of the tests.

 To install the Bar Snake, first you remove the handlebar grips. (the Bar Snake can only be installed in tubular handlebars, and only if there are no control cables or wires running through the bars. Shorter lengths of the Bar Snake may be installed in tubular clip-ons if there is a hole in both ends of each clip-on.) Next, you grease one end of the handlebar, and lubricate the Bar Snake with grease. Thread the installation wire through the greased handlebar end and out to the other side. Then thread the remainder of the wire through the hole in the end of the Bar Snake, twisting at least four inches of the wire back on itself a half dozen times. Then attach the other end of the wire to a stick and pull the Bar Snake through the last few inches with another piece of wire.

 After installing the Snake, there was no change in the arcs drawn by the felt pen, but there was a five-db average reduction in intensity at each measured rpm. Since the decibel scale is logarithmic, this is a substantial reduction. But my R80's worst vibration occurs during acceleration from one engine speed to the next. With the Bar Snake installed the meter's needle only climbed to 130 db. That may seem like a lot, but this is a direct transduction measurement, not the actual sound pressure; it's kind of like sticking the handlebar right up against your eardrum. Without the Bar Snake installed, the needle went off the scale (140 db-Plus) during speed transitions.

 Perhaps the best test was taking the bike for a ride. The Beemer was much more pleasant, which is good, because the Bar Snake would be much tougher to remove than it was to install. My hands weren't nearly as numbed as usual. I did have onelast test in mind, though, which included motion sensors set in a semi solid medium.

Unfortunately, someone ate the Jell-O.

 The American-made Bar Snake comes in three sizes for aluminum motorcross bars, standard bars or one inch (Harley-Davidson and others).

 It's well known that tubular shapes have a natural tendency to conduct and amplify vibration. This principle has been used for centuries to create bells and horns, but only since the arrival of sophisticated machinery has unwanted vibration been considered a problem. During the electronics boom of the last few decades vibration control has become a field of pivotal importance, yet little: of this technology had been applied to motorcycles until the Bar Snake.

 The Bar Snake is a thick cord of extremely dense rubber that is inserted into hollow handlebars. The Snake installs easily, stretching as it's pulled through, but it helps if a second person feeds it in from the opposite side. In my KZ1000 it reduced the high frequency vibration by about 50%, increasing both comfort and control.

 The Bar Snake should be seriously considered by anyone who suffers from sore wrists, numb hands, or other symptom of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The Bar Snake is available for steel, aluminum and 1" (Harley-Davidson) handlebars.

 We've encountered riders of Sportsters, XS650s and SR500s who tell us their bikes don't vibrate. Not a bit. On the other hand, plenty of riders would love to be able to reduce the high frequency buzzing that can prove so annoying on a highway trip. Trouble is, there's not a lot that can be done about inherent engine vibration. One partial solution is something called the Bar Snake, a devise used originally by California desert racers riding buzzy two-stokes. The Bar Snake is nothing but a solid neoprene rope that fits inside the handlebar to help damp vibrations.

We installed a Bar Snake on a Honda CB350 rat bike, admittedly a severe challenge. Installation was simple: remove the handgrips, feed a wire (supplied, through the handlebar and attach a wire to a reinforced end of the rubber Snake. Next we liberally greased the handlebars inside ends and the Bar Snake itself before hauling it through the handlebar. One the Snake passes through the other side, its ends are trimmed off and the handlebar grips replaced.

 Riding the CB350 afterward was still rather short of sheer luxury. Nothing less than a miracle would halt its vibration, but we noted an immediate reduction of the most objectionable high frequency buzzing.

 Bar Snakes are available in sizes for steel and aluminum handlebars and one-inch sizes to fit Harleys.

 C. P. Product's Bar Snake is a classic example of American innovation. It is a simple, effective solution to a universal problem; Handlebar Vibration. The Bar Snake has the largest potential customer base of any motorcycle product ever offered. Virtually every motorcycle made in the last 50 years would benefit from the installation of a Bar Snake. Truly universal, it fits nearly every make, model and year of motorcycle. The Bar Snake creates and fills it's own market place without competition.

 Get rid of the rattle and hum and then take a bite out of the competition with the new Bar Snake- designed to deaden excessive handlebar vibrations caused by high-speed, rough-terrain riding. The Bar Snake will increase steering control and add to your riding endurance. The bar snake comes in three sizes: ST1 (standard) 7/8-inch steel, Al2 (aluminum thick-wall bars), HD3 Harley-Davidson.