First, thanks to all of you for the positive comments. I consider myself far from being mechanically inclined but I do love to tinker. Having this bike and the myriad of options out there for it has allowed me to do with it what I used to do with my cars / trucks when I was much younger (I had a couple of "show trucks" that I spent WAY too much time and $$ on...)
Anyway, to try and address the questions that have been raised...
1. Fit & part numbers -- The Memphis Shades fairing is purely "plug & play" if you will... the only mod I had to make is that I had to swap out the grommets as mentioned because the stock versions aren't wide / thick enough to accommodate the Memphis Shades locking mechanisms. I posted this thread (
http://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?topic=48834.0) when I first got the kit and pre-paint. It has pictures and the part numbers I used.
2. Wind protection -- This one is hard for me to answer. The reason for that is primarily that I wear a modular helmet (it's a personal phobia) so even with the original "deflector" windshield buffeting was not much of an issue for me. Don't get me wrong, I did get the wind in the face (shield) just like everyone else but it never really bothered me much. Before the fairing, I did put on a 17" Pro-Curve windshield and I noticed a little bit of a difference but nothing dramatic. So... now to the fairing... What I have noticed is an overall difference in the way the wind is directed around me -- which is pretty obvious because of the difference in the shape of the object that hits the wind. Initially I put a 7" shield on the fairing and I did get a little bit of buffeting, nothing major and I would have been just fine living with it but I had already purchased a 9" shield so I put it on to see if it made a difference. With that 9" shield I still get airflow but the bit of buffeting that I had noticed with the 7" isn't there. (For what it's worth, I'm 5'10".) The bottom line for me is that this combination works but this is so subjective that I'd hate for anyone to take my comments as testimony that it will work the same for others.
3. Saddlebags -- without a doubt, if I had it to do over again and cost wasn't a factor I'd try to find a set of extended bags. I just think they (would) look better, with both the stock mufflers and certainly with the Monster Rounds. The catch here is that I bought these before the '09 CVOs came out and I had not paid much attention to the other aftermarket stretched bag options at that time. Also, I found this set on eBay already black primered and only paid $350 for the pair including the lids (no hardware). Every other set I found was several hundred bucks more so I couldn't turn this down.
I think I covered everything asked... sorry for the slow reply... #$*#$($!! job keeps getting in the way of what I really like to talk about...
