Tired of looking at your arms in the rear-view mirrors?
A set of mirror extenders might help.
There are many different types, one of which may fit your motorcycle.
On the BMW F 800 S, the stock mirrors look nice but they’re virtually useless.
The SW-Motech mirror extender blocks described here solved the problem.
Too many motorcycles have poorly designed rear view mirrors. But there is a solution…if you’re lucky.
We’ve covered this topic before, with the mirror wideners for the Suzuki V-Strom 1000 ABS.
Also made by SW-Motech, they move the base of the mirror out about 40 mm and up, which added about 20% more rear visibility.
Those are available for many different motorcycles that have the basic type of mirrors that screw in to adapters on the handlebar.
Some motorcycles, like the F 800 S, have the mirrors mounted on the fairing. This calls for a different type of mirror extender or widener.
The SW-Motech extenders shown here are basically a block or wedge extension that also adds about 40 mm to the overall width on either side.
They look a bit strange at first, but I soon became used to them and now they just look like part of the bike.
While they don’t provide a perfect rear view, I now get about 60% of the usable mirror vs. no visibility at all before.
They’re very easy to install; let’s take a quick look in pictures:
Remove both 5 mm SHCS bolts to remove the mirror from the fairing. Red arrow on the left is the arm adjuster knuckle (next photo). See second photo above, this bolt serves as the “knuckle” of the BMW mirror to allow fore/aft adjustment of the mirror arm. Tighten it to increase friction. I added the wavy washer to help improve the friction because the mirror arms have become loose from too many adjustments by the previous owner. The SW-Motech kit for the BMW, Kawasaki and others uses CNC-milled “PA6-MO composite” extenders. The kit comes with the longer SHCS bolts (these are 70 mm long). Here’s a close-up of the extender on the right and how it fits under the OE mirror base. Front view of the motorcycle with the mirror extenders installed.Conclusion
SW-Motech makes quality accessories and I have installed many of their products on the Suzuki DR650 (Blog), the Suzuki V-Strom 1000 ABS (Blog) and now on the BMW F 800 S (Blog).
Old-timers like me will remember the days when none of these helpful accessories existed. Unless you could figure out a solution on your own, you were, well, on your own.
Basic mirror extenders for screw-in handlebar mirrors have been around for a while, but now it’s good to know that there are many other types available that can even fit bolt-on mirrors which are mounted on a fairing.
Note, however, that depending on your physical dimensions and the motorcycle, you probably won’t go from no rearward visibility at all to full visibility. A good example of that is these SW-Motech mirror extenders mounted on the F 800 S.
But at least I have some visibility to the rear; I had absolutely zero before.
These don’t come cheap, however. The going price for this type of extender for various motorcycles is $83.95 the pair. But since you couldn’t make a set that looks so “OE” unless you owned a fully-stocked machine shop, you don’t have much of a choice.
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