What Handguards Do You Run and Why?

Stock Husky Flags. Have yet to break one.

SXS burly hand guards. They are almost as strong as bark busters but have an escape route for your hand. All SXS stuff is super high quality.

What bike do you ride? If it’s a Ktm, Husky or gas gas you should be able to use the oem hand guard mounts that mount through the brake and clutch. If any other brand you do have to have the aluminum burly mounts. The slide plates are bad ass as well, it made it noticeably better going over logs, the linkage protection is awesome.

I'm using the same Enduro Engineering open-ended ones. Love them so far!

Maybe you crash a lot?😂🤷‍♂️
JK..

I have a set of the same but run the Cycra DX flags on them. Sitting in a bin as the stock Husky flags have not broken yet. Do they still make the EE aluminum mounts?

I wish they still made the EE aluminum mounts with the hinge and spring. They were great.

Sxs on my race bike, rotating fleet of cycra and Acerbis flags on the practice machine.

I run the Tusk D-Flex Pro full wraparound guards. I move away from the aluminum full wraps until I tag a tree hard enough to smash my hand. Then I buy a set of aluminum wraparounds and they stay on the bike the rest of the time I own it. I like the acerbis plastic wrap around guards, but I can never get them tight enough to keep them from moving in a crash or hard tree smack.

This. Always run SXS burly guards and the SXS slide plate. Once you run either chances are you’ll never use anything else on an off-road bike

Enduro Engineering full wrap. Why? Previous experience with the product, they work extremely well, they take the abuse that I dish out and for me they are a local based company (Michigan).

But, your video intrigued me. I’d like to try the open ended ones you talked about in the video. My handlebars are very crowded.

Ok Woody, finally retired my set after 185 hours. Took a good digger yesterday and had finally cracked one of the flags a few weeks ago. The crack split pretty good. Slapped a new set on.

SXS here as well with G2 mounts. Never broken a lever, these things hold your bike off the ground in a fall like a full wrap, yet they flex just enough if you smack a tree.

They’re skid plates for your hands.

I just put the Tusk D-Flex Pro on my 390 Adventure. So far so good.

Love a good handguard post, lol. I've always run some sort of roost/hand guard, but there're a lot out there I haven't tried yet. Switched to the same EE perch mounted roost guards mentioned above. Love them so far, just wish EE would update their shield design (look dated imo). Previous to that was running the Fastway full wraps, with tapped bar-end inserts and bar clamp mounts. Absolutely my favorite full wrap setup. Ended up switching to shave a few grams, but mainly to re-gain some bar flex and bar width. Still have the Fastways, and will probably run them if I race any more Hare Scrambles or long format off-road races. I love stock levers and full wraps are the only insurance for finishing a long race, in that regard.

Pic below I was running standard mount Cycra's in a HS. Smacked a tree on Lap 1 and throttle side flipped up so high it was in contact with my forearm the entire race. I booted it a couple of times as I was getting up from the get-off, but was the best I could do quickly. Almost ended my race (and first win!) right there. Will never run the bar clamp mounted wraps again.



Fastway setup:








Current EE setup:










Still plan on switching to the stocker flags at some point, in the interest of simplicity. Haven't tried them yet

I'm curious about the movement you have on " Ahh Chair Bees " guards.

Is it the fully plastic guards that do this for you? I can see that as I used them years ago, before Acerbis introduced the end of bar set up I'll refer to later.

As, their flexibility lends movement to them. They have advantages and disadvantages. Advantages : easier fitment, Not interfering with bar flex and thus exacerbating vibration, and, through their lesser strength, and much less ( with the versions I used, they may have changed over the years) 'clampy' clamps not being such a stress raiser that can take the whole side of a bar off, at times, in a prang. I see A Lot of the Dakar / Rally Raid field using them still, and I assume they are used because of those advantages.

Disadvantages : well, you can use some of those 'advantages' listed, in an opposite context. And that they do twist and move.

I use Acerbis wrap arounds with the alloy bars to them, with the plastic and spoilers. I just have so many trees to clang against in my riding, and, I value ( highly) my hands and fingers, as I've had a Lot of operations on them ( unrelated to bike riding) And, in the over 40 + years I've used Bark Buster type hand guards, I've never submerged my hands / arms into them, though it Could happen.

All this to get to the feature I so value with the Acerbis guards I use : the male / female, 'dovetail' you might say, at the handlebar insert / protective bar interface. That gives a mechanical interface,that doesn't rely on just a bolt being torqued. That, combined with the pronounced Diamond patterning to the expander, so the expander / insert is damned near impossible to rotate in the handlebars, means that I've not had the guards rotate in the end of the handlebars, in years and year of use. And I prang , and slam trees, pretty bloody regularly. I prep the bars and insert fully,= clean, with grease or copper slip on the threads of the expander bolts as to have no galling to the threads that hinders it all being tightened fully, and, the same with the clamps inboard on the bars.

I just don't have the movement problems that you ( though, I read it as you having the all plastic ones, which Will move), and others ( so many seem to have not just the full plastic, but also the metal bar type) write about with the Acerbis Bark Buster type products. I'm just curious, I'm Not having a go at you.

I just can't recall the brand name ( just remembered : Highway Dirt Bikes HDB Ultimate Handguards) in my Bear Brain, but I've long thought of getting those, that have the aluminium part of them in a flat oval / tear drop shape, sort of like spoilers in and of themselves, And, the company also does plastic spoiler add ons. Their integral flip up mirrors would help keep the cops off my back. The only thing stopping me is having plenty of BBs on hand, and, that they, when I last looked at them, didn't have that keyed in expander to protective bar interface. As a side note, I've friends that use the inserts that you tap thread into the bars for - yup, the inserts certainly stay put, but the BBs still rotate at the interface. The tapped threads, with an interface like I have on the Acerbis inserts, would be the absolute Ducks Guts!

I run the Acerbis Flag's on my XC bike. I like the look better than the wrap arounds and their functionality is just as good for what I am wanting. I had one set of wrap arounds on a WR I owned and had them get twisted up was causing my throttle to hang. So from then on it has been flags also if needed I can replace several sets of flags for what a cost of wrap arounds are.