picked my tracer up yesterday in the faster red colour and took the hand guards straight of as not to my taste, looking for some other bar ends to fit so any ideas please
I also removed them as my first job, currently I have the standard ones from my other 09 and they are fine. I do have some R&G ones but I find they do not go all the way in and look a little odd. Don't bother trying the universal ones (without the thread) as they seem to just fall out.
I've simply removed the ones on my MT 09 and fitted MX style enclosed grips, no noticeable increase with vibes without the end weights on and the bars are a few inches narrower which helps with filtering.
I have removed the hand guards and fitted R&G bar ends. I also found that they do not fit quite right, the shoulder needs to be cut down a few mm in length to allow them to fit flush to the grips. I will be talking to my friend with a machine shop.
It occurs to me that the handle bar vibration is slightly reduced with the hand guards removed, its certainly no worse.
I removed my hand guards too, got some of these for the MT09 & turned them down by 3mm & 9mm so they screwed right in, i think the bike looks a lot better without the guards.
I have now had the R&G bar ends machined, I think that the required dimensions may differ from bike to bike. I have genuine heated grips fitted and needed an 8 mm shoulder on one bar end on side and 9.5 mm on the other. If any one is considering this mod I suggest that your fit the bar ends first and take a measurement before machining. The throttle side needs a little extra clearance to stop the twist grip from binding.
Deviating a bit off topic I didn't like the standard hand guards and didn't think they achieved much so was looking for some alternatives. Katana Al very kindly let me try his 1200 Tenere ones, but they are costly new and would have needed cutting. Bought some KTM ones, £44 new. They have to be cut and some small brackets made where they attached to the mirrors but they are far better at keeping the wind off your hands and don't look so bad (In my opinion!).