15 days!!!!

15 days smoke free!! We are going to beat this! Is it getting easier? Not really, I think if anything it's gotten a little harder. The cravings seem to be a little stronger, but nothing that can't be dealt with. The things I've noticed though are I no longer cough and hack when I get up in the mornings. That one happened amazingly fast, within a week the smokers cough was gone, I don't miss it one bit! The other thing is smell, my sense of smell is improving dramatically, everything smells stronger and it's easier to identify different odors. My sense of taste however, is slower to improve. I have noticed two things though, coffee tastes much better now, I loved coffee before, but it's even better now and Mountain Dew now tastes awful, I don't even touch it now, lol!

On to obligatory motorcycle content! With the colder months setting in I decided to get a windshield mounted on my Vulcan 900. Now I'm not a fan of windshields, for me personally part of my love of the ride is the wind and being in and a part of it. With being said, if adding a shield can extend my road time for the year, I'll gladly use one. Several months ago I was given a shield by a friend, he bought it for his Vulcan 1600 but it wasn't what he wanted so I ended up with it. No mounting hardware, just a shield. We have no idea what it came off of, but we know know it's from a Vulcan by the emblem.

With a little research it appears this shield came from an '05 or earlier Vulcan as Kawi changed the logo in '06. Since it came with no mounting hardware the challenge was to figure that out. The bottom mounts were close to the stock light bar mounts, but that put it too low and the bottom of the shield was hitting the blinkers.

As you can see in the pic above, the stock shield brackets were too wide as well. I didn't want to use spacers so I took it to work, removed the brackets from the shield and fired up our press brake. I tightened up the bend a bit, drilled some new holes just above the factory ones and the bottom mount is done.

Now the top mount doesn't line up with anything, except maybe the handle bars, hmmmm...maybe I can make this work.

After a quick trip to the hardware store for a couple 1" clamps with rubber isolators, a piece of 1/4" all-thread, and some nuts and washers, the top mount was done.

The finished product-

I did this at the shop I work at and had about a 15 mile ride home, it was 40 degrees, a 20mph wind, and raining, a good test. It's very solid and works well although there is some buffeting at the top of my head, but not too bad. It kept the rain completely off my upper body, except for some on my helmet. The wind pressure on my upper body was completely gone, now that was different, in cold weather that will be very welcome, but the shield will come off this spring as I would just as soon feel the wind.

Some may call my mounting set-up redneck, I prefer creative, lol! I searched for some mounts, but at $100 for a mount set up I'd rather save some cash and build my own. I've got a grand total a $5 in this windshield and mount set-up, it works well and doesn't look too bad. I can live with that. It looks like my Vulcan 900 has become my winter solo ride as my wife hates cold and refuses to ride in it.

Ride safe!!