Hello Folks
I installed Bar End mirrors on my Mp3 to try it out and see how it would look and work. Sorry for the long post, but I figure if anyone else has similar thoughts or desires they might benefit from the longer post.
I wanted better rear-view and side visibility to be able to better check blind-spots and check for faster traffic approaching from behind. I live in California where everyone drives 15 mph over the speed limit. As the Mp3 is not the fastest I need to be able to see whats behind me (or approaching rapidly) so I can change lanes or make plans to let them pass. Being able to see whats behind your or check the rear half-way through a turn is also important as the roads I travel are very twisty mountain roads around the San Francisco Bay Area. Stock mirrors are Okay, but I need a solution to better check-six while riding.
First I tried mounting blind-spot mirrors to the outer edges of the stock mirrors. The cheap stick-on round ones from AutoZone worked but rattled and buzzed due to the mirror being loosely mounted in the housing. I ordered better ones (link below) on Amazon and those worked very well and I will continue to use them despite minor issues with accidentally breaking them off occasionally.
So those little mirrors were good but I wanted something more permanent and less problematic. Bar-end Mirrors looked to be a good answer but I wanted ones I could mount on the under-side of the steering bar. It also could not make the bike wider as we have legal lane-splitting here in California.
I saw these (link below) in a clearance bin at CycleGear so picked them up figuring I could adapt it to the Mp3. Success! It worked. It needed a trip to the local ACE-hardware store to get shorter metric-screws (the default end-screws are too long) and a bit of electrical tape. But it worked. The result is the bike is about 2 inches narrower at the steering-bar height which makes lane-splitting easier. The mirrors are in-board and mounted under the steering-bar. I did notice the clamp-system did not adequately grip the mirrors allowing drift, a few wrappings of electrical-tape fixed that so no more mirror-drifting.
This past Fathers Day weekend I did a 120 mile loop through twisty mountain roads to try out my newly mounted bar-end mirrors for my Mp3. The course was fast-straights, uphill twists, downhills, blind-turns, an all around great mountain road fun loop. Lots of opportunities to try out my newly mounted mirrors.
The results were disappointing. They do perform the required job of showing me the blind-spots and are much more durable and less problem prone than the little add-on spot-mirrors. The problem is I have to take my eyes of the road for about a half second to check the bar-end mirrors and the field of view provided.
I think I will leave them on as they aren't hurting anything, look cool, and do provide another option for visibility. But I'm going to maintain using the primary stock-mirrors with the little extra wing spots. At about $30 clearance its not really worth the trouble and hassle of returning them at the moment.
The next step would be to just replace the stock antenna style mirrors with something compatible with the Mp3 and a wider field of view. Probably should have done that from the beginning, but oh well. Now I've scratched the curiosity itch of bar-end mirrors on an Mp3.
Shopping list for better visibility and bar-ends.
The little add-on mirrors I've got mounted now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C0CY3US
Two 1 inch diameter rubber gaskets to dampen vibration while helping the mirror mount grip better
Two Metric M6 x 30mm 1.00 pitch - the original screws are far to long for this.
https://www.cyclegear.com/gear/speedmetal-billet-bar-end-mirrors - got on clearance
Black Electical Tape (gap filler) - free from the garage supply box.