Okay, so after having the Symba in storage for the long winter, I’ve been riding it for the last month or so and came to the conclusion that either I had to get the bench seat, or that luggage rack bar had to go. I’m 5’10”, but I think anyone over 5’8”, maybe even shorter, will have a problem with the bar hitting their lower back. It’s really not that bad when the road is smooth, but hit a bump and you risk getting bruised!
I’m buying a condo next month and need to come up with a pretty hefty down payment, so I decided I’d go the cheap route (cutting the bar off). I bought a hacksaw for $10.00, picked up a few chromed end caps at the hardware store for 80 cents apiece – I think they’re end-caps for curtain rods or some other household item – and went to work. You’ll note that I really didn’t cut the bar itself, but cut the side tubes that are part of the rack, leaving about ¼” still extending out. That was a practical decision as much as an aesthetic one, as I knew I’d need a little space for the saw to slide back and forth when I was cutting. And, if you only cut the bar itself instead of the rack, you're going to have these little stumpy tubes sticking up for no apparent reason. Anyways, I forced some rags and card board under the rack so I wouldn’t nick the paint once the blade went all the way through. My cuts weren’t perfect, but after a little filing down of the rough edges I deemed them ‘close enough.’ I then painted the raw metal on the end of the rack tubes with silver touch up paint to give it some rust-proofing. I didn’t bother trying to find a match for the baby blue paint as I knew the touched-up area would be covered once I plugged the open holes with the end-caps. After I let the paint dry overnight, I applied a little JB weld to the inner edges of the holes, pushed in the caps (they also have little metal teeth to hold onto whatever they’re inserted in, but the ‘teeth’ are not visible once the caps are inserted) and let them dry overnight. The caps are very solid now that the JB weld has dried. NOTE: before inserting the caps I pushed the teeth on the caps outward somewhat as the size is just slightly off for the diameter of the rack tubing. ANOTHER TIP: once you cut the rack, bring the bar assembly with you to the hardware store to find a correct size end cap (SEE photo in next post). The end-cap I used was the only one that would’ve worked as the next sizes both up and down were either too large or too small.
I’ve only ridden the bike once since the ‘surgery,’ but I can tell that the back bruising won’t happen now. Next chance I get, I’m going to try it with the passenger seat in place; it seems like I’ll be able to use that as a very low backrest if I want to shift back a little when I’m cruising. I also think the rack will be as useful as before and will only be lacking the bar to stop cargo from sliding into the seat, which I don’t see as a problem so long as your cargo is lashed down securely enough.
Well, I hope this helps those of you out there who’ve been wondering what they can do to make the seating situation better without spending money on the bench seat. I apologize for not taking photos as I did the work, but I guess I am new to this 'tutorial' business, and was a little impatient to finish the project. Here are some photos of the result, I think it turned out pretty well:
