Since taking my V-Strom off road recently and enjoying it, I know I will be doing a lot more of it. So I have been looking around recently for a bash plate. Enduro Guardian is without a shadow of a doubt the one to go for. I even enquired about postage costs and import charges with Enduro Guardian themselves. Then I saw on this forum the Heed bash plate. It looked very similar to the Enduro Guardian but was from Poland and previous customers had said that it arrives within five days and has free postage. I emailed Heed and they were very good at replying to me about whether they work with the original Suzuki crash bars and whether it works with a centre stand and they told me it does in both cases. So I went ahead and ordered the aluminium one which cost me £139 and had free postage. Only four days later it arrived (Wow). It's very nicely made and is very nicely painted too. The only thing I didn't realise is that there is a hole cut in the bottom of it, underneath the exhaust pipe, I couldn't really work out what this was for other than maybe to provide cooling. It's incredibly difficult to get the side stand bolt off in order to fit the bracket. I had to use a spanner and a mallet for about 10 minutes to get the thing fully unscrewed. Once I had got the bash plate on (as per photos on their website), it looked like there was a lot of gap between the bash plate and the bottom of the engine. I realised if I could somehow raise the front end of the bash plate I could reduce that gap considerably and improve the overall look. So I mounted the front fasteners upside down and filled out the gap (created by the fact that the Suzuki bars are thinner than the Heed bars) with old inner tubing. The result was fantastic, there is now a minimal gap between the bottom of the engine and the bash plate and I think it looks much much better too. I am very pleased with the result, but I think Heed could possibly come up with a better fastening system at the front, maybe using U-bolts like in Enduro Guardian does. This would also have an effect of making it a lot stronger at the front as well, as the fasteners that Heed use at the front don't look very strong compared to the beefy bracket that holds on the back end. Photos to follow.
