City Bike Magazine, Sometime in 1990?
By Maynard Hershon.

I just installed and test-rode the Bar Snake, a solid rubber tube you insert into your handlebar. Perhaps you noticed the mention in last month’s CITYBIKE. The people who make the Bar Snake claim it lowers the perceptible vibration in your handlebar 50 to 80 percent.

My Kawasaki’s engine is rubber-mounted but the bars still buzz at speed, eventually numbing even my steel-sinewed Real Man’s hands. The Bar Snake seemed like a good idea to me.

Installing the Snake takes a half-hour or so. If you can remove your left-hand grip without cutting it, all you need comes in the package, except grease and spray lube.

I got help from my friends at Berkeley Yamaha, without whom I would have to quit riding. One guy (Scott Dunlavey) pulled the wire attached to the Snake while another (me) fed the Snake smoothly into the opposite end of the bar, preventing the bar-end from cutting the rubber.

A third guy, ol’ Bouncin’ Bob Nichols, braced the front end of the bike while we fed and pulled the snake through. Two of us would have been enough, I think, but we had fun.

Installing the Bar Snake is a kind of a fun job. It’s not like other mechanical tasks one does around motorcycles; it’s organic, in a way. The tube fits tightly into the bar. You greased it heavily and spray the inside of the bar with silicone or Triflow, some kind of lube. The Bar Snake sorta glides in there as you pull, kinda sensually, if you catch my meaning.

Does it work? Well, I think it does, on my bike. I rode about 60 miles today with the Bar Snake installed. At freeway speeds, between 4,000 and 5,500 rpm, my bars felt steadier, less buzzy. As if they thought my motor was smoother.

The bars on my Kawasaki are short and rigidly mounted. Longer bars would vibrate more and would house more Bar Snake; you might feel a more dramatic difference. Each bike would be different, I think.

Around town, you don’t notice buzzy bars much and, on my bike, the change isn’t night-and-day, even on the freeway. Still, I could easily feel a difference and I liked it. Bar Snakes are definitely worth the $20 (1990 price). Oh, I forgot to mention that - and this must be the acid test — the images in my bar-mounted mirrors are suddenly clearer: Bar Snake must work.

Read Previous Review