I thought I'd offer a review of the Unabiker radiator guards.

I feel like I've been riding on borrowed time already with regards to radiator protection. It is not atypical for me to be riding in rocky conditions far away from home/help, and alone.







I ask for and Santa delivered a set of Unabiker radiator guards. The arrived in a well packed and padded box with individual components in separately sealed plastic compartments.

For what it is, it feels quite overpriced. However, I fully acknowledge there is a convenience factor in play here and it was nice to have all parts arrive ready to install rather than me spending days or weeks piecing something together. Also, the fact that a set of guards even exists for a 15+ year old bike must be taken into account. I am thrilled to have the option to purchase.

Instructions were...OK. Not terrible but not excellent. There were no pictures or diagrams included in the 1-page set of instructions. Words only. But steps were simple enough to understand and follow along. I had pictures of the guards pulled up on my iPhone during the install which I refrenced and that helped too.

Fitment of parts I would classify as subpar. To this day, the clutch cable routing is going to need some additional tweaking, or chafing and/or damage is sure to result. Several aluminum pieces required bending and filing to enable proper alignment and attachment. The fasteners in the kit at 4mm Allen head bolts. I have no idea really why they aren't standard 8mm bolts. If I stay with the Allen head bolts, it will require me to carry several additional tools in the bag to allow me to dissasemble on the trail should the need arise.. I'll be swapping them out for 8mm bolts so that they go along with most other fasteners on the bike.

Are they sturdy? They damn well sure are, without a doubt. They definitely will provide very good protection for the otherwise vulnerable radiators. Would I buy them again? Yes, but only because I think they are the only game in town for the 06/07 vintage. Overall, I'm happy enough.

I do want to point out that I'm aware an Acerbis tank would've negated the need for radiator guards. The Acerbis tank itself provides very good side impact protection. Although, I think the front would still be exposed and vulnerable.

 

My thoughts are almost identical to yours. Fitment was tricky, the parts definitely didn't align perfectly, but the end result is even sturdier than I had expected.

Also a piece of advice I would share with anybody that orders these is to be careful handling them right out of the box. My parts were not deburred well and I cut my finger on one of them. Not a bad idea to have a small file on hand to knock down any sharp edges, or just wear mechanics gloves for the installation. All in all, good product for serving it's intended purpose though.

 

An excellent point regarding the sharp edges. My set could’ve used some minor filing on all of the edges to prevent injury. I didn’t slice any skin but I was sure being careful during install to prevent doing so.

 

Can I ask exactly how you handled/routed the clutch cable on your bike? I’ve been struggling with exactly how I want to accomplish this. Seems my options are:

1) Cut out a sizeable piece of rad guard, trim and file, and then maybe zip tie the cable to the rad guard.
2) Remove a fairly large piece of the fender to prevent it from rubbing on the cable.
3) Some combination of 1 and 2?

 

I don't recall having to do anything with the clutch cable routing.

 

Just went through your photos here again, yeah my bike doesn't have the cable close to the fender like that. Mine is a 2019, maybe they made some changes.

 

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for the quick reply.

I know our bikes are of different vintage, but would be curious to see your setup and cable rooting if you’re willing to post some pics?

 

My bike is tucked away in storage until it gets warmer, so it's gonna be awhile, but I can post pics when I get the bike out for the first time. Of note is that I'm looking just at google images of my same bike and yeah it's definitely tucked away. I can't even see the clutch cable in regular photos.

 

Well, that wasn't so bad.

I fixed the issue simply by flipping the clutch cable wire guide thingy (technical term) back to its original orientation. The Unibiker instructions said to flip it upside down. But it's clearly better this way.
I did take a file to some of the sharp edges of the guards -- thanks for the tip there.
I also swapped out the allen head fasteners with std hex bolts.
Need to get the bike out next week and, hopefully, NOT test out the rad guards.