Taking off the rear fender? safety issue????

[painterman]

I was thinking about taking off the rear fender, just like the way it looks without it, but I was concerned about any kind of safety issue esp. with the passenger. Wondered if rocks or things could fly up and cause damage to the :spyder2:. thanks guys.

[nater1]

I personnel would leave it alone. In the State of Wisconsin it would be considered illegal to not run a fender, and the State Troopers would give you a ticket for that.

1. What do you plan to do with the plate mounting. Again there are many State rules that govern the placement of the plate so if you do not like the Police having a reason to right you a ticket do not mess around with it.

2. If you wanted to be different but legal have a custom fender rolled for you in any shape, design you prefer. Call up a local water jet, or laser cutter fab shop to have them cut out a spyder to use as a fender, and then french the plate into the design.
I know here the local fab shop is so slow that they are advertising that they do custom one offs water jet cuts for $55 hour on the machine plus $25 for design work.

[patches]

I have run mine without for over a year and over 10K and have been all over the country and not one problem unless I ride 2up and it rains. No rocks or anything.
As for the safty, if you think the little plastic piece will prevent injury, you are sadly mistaken. If hit in the rear, there is no way that piece will save anything. I got hit in the rear while in Gatlinburg last year and thank goodness I didn't have the fender, it would just be more pieces to fix and may have caused more problems.
As for the state law, talking with CHP buddy of mine that is now with TSA, there is no law for a motorcycle to have a fender. That would mean just about every other bike out there would not be legal. Yes, the license plate must be displayed a certain way depending on the state. There are very few bikes that actually have a rear fender including just about every super sport made.
Taking the fender off gives a little more sportyness to the spyder but it is not for everyone as you will get stuff that does come up if you run off the ride of the road. There are plate relo kits out there that are very easy to put on.