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We simply replaced the nylon pucks on one side of the bike which are sold separately and replaced the shredded but still intact carbon swing arm protector. Amazingly, the swing arm did not get a single mark on it! Most of the bike was as good as new.
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| The stock handguards are more for looks and are made out of a really brittle plastic that breaks in the slightest crash. We replaced the stock parts with these tough Ducati Performance racing handguards. These are tough and slippery plastic. In a fall the bike will probably slide along on these and sustain less damage. They will also protect the levers and expensive Brembo hydraulics. In cold weather they help prevent your hands from getting numb a little by blocking the wind blast. |
Unfortunately we could not say the same for the handlebars. The factory Ducati bars have a hole in them for pins on the switch mounts. The pins prevent the mounts from rotating. This is lame for a couple of reasons. It makes it harder to adjust the levers to your liking and the hole creates a stress riser in the bars. Our stock bars snapped at the hole in the crash. We were super lucky that the tank did not hit the ground, nor did our Pazzo billet levers get thrashed.
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| The stock handguards have plastic clamps that break in a fall with the greatest of ease. The Ducati Performance parts are tough aluminum which will hang in there and protect the bike. |
The Hypermotard looks like it has Supermoto type handguards with integral mirrors and turn signals. On a Supermoto bike, these guards are tough metal reinforced plastic and are designed protect the bike in a fall. The Hypermotards parts are only styled to look like real racing guards and have built in mirrors. The mirrors look real cool but they always worked loose, changing adjustment. They also vibrated and were are hard to see out of. The worst thing was that they were made of a brittle plastic! When the bike hit the ground, the handguard and mirror assembly broke into pieces. New factory parts for the bars and handguard/mirror were super expensive and we hated the stock blurry mirrors.
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| The rest of the handguard is backed up with a thick aluminum bar stock reinforcement that attaches to the bar ends. This won’t break too easily. |
We found our solution in the Ducati Performance catalog. Ducati Performance is the factory performance arm of Ducati and we have been using many of their parts in the buildup of project Hypermotard. Ducati Performance had a racing handguard set. These parts are made by Acerbis, the company that makes the handguards used by supermoto racers. The guards are made of thick plastic and completely cover the end of the bars and controls. The guards mount to thick and strong aluminum mounting bars that clamp onto the handlebars. If you crash there is a good chance that the bike would just slide along on the guards without damage. They fit the Hypermotard perfectly.
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| Since the DP handguards do not have built in mirrors anymore, we went to Ducati Performance’s mirrors. The Mirrors can be mounted with this slick clamp which attaches to the Brembo racing MC’s which do not normally have provisions for mirrors. This is much cleaner than bar clamps. |
