Many thanks y'all. It is surprisingly large when it's on and I think it definitely needs some stripes otherwise it is just too 'in your face' (or at least I think so).
As for the handling....after I installed it I took it for a bit of test ride. It was reasonably windy yesterday and I was interested in whether it would effect the handling. Now, I've been having some issues with my tyre valves of late so before I went out, I made sure that there was the pre-requisite amount of air in the appropriate places (including my good self) and off I went. In the past when the tyres have been a tad down, the bike just feels a little as if it is 'yawing'. There were a couple of times yesterday when I was riding that I had this feeling, but it certainly didn't happen all the time, and when it did happen it was over very quickly. I live up in the hills and some of the roads have joins - usually parallel to the centre of the road - where road works have occurred. At the time I happened to be in this 'neck of the woods'. However, I had thought that I was careful to avoid the joins - so I'm not sure if I was just careless or it had something to do with the fairing.
I noticed that it certainly vibrates at the very top of the fairing at about 2 500rpm but below and above that, there are no problems and even with the vibration, this does not cause any handling issues.
Like you, I was really interested in where the air would hit. Prior to the fairing, there was just an overall effect of the air hitting my upper body, but now it is definitely hitting around my chest - I'm 183cm (6'). If there had been a bit of lip on the fairing I think this would have bounced that flow up a lot higher. I didn't notice any additional effect with the fairing when I was in some cross-winds - I was just blown a little off my line - as normally happens. I want to take it out and go on the freeway just to see how it handles at speed, but unfortuantely I don't see that happening this weekend.
When I finally get out, I'll let you know how it went.
PS - I took it out tonight. The guy who painted it, put matt black on the rear side - but even with this, the reflection from the headlight is a pain. I think I need some type of boot between the headlight and the fairing - possibly taking a leaf from trolle and using an inner tube....Hey larst - did you have this problem?
