Cheetah SST windscreen

[installed on May 20, 2003.]

I recently ordered a medium smoked Cheetah SST windscreen online. I ordered straight from the source, and it only cost $16! All their other windscreens are around $60. When you read this article they may have fixed the price. Also a special bonus: if you want free shipping, on the order form click "ship to Canada", then click "ship to US." You'll notice the shipping is now $0. Turns out to be a great price. I received it a week later, and I still haven't been charged. I know this windscreen doesn't have the quality of the Givi screen, but for the price you may as well.

Here is a quick doc of the install and review. Before reading this you might notice there is another review of the stock XX screen vs this Cheetah at Motorsports Network. Also, Carlos has a review he posted a few years back. I should also note that my bird is a '99, so the stock screen is a bit shorter than the stock screens on the '01+ birds. For more detailed installation gotchas, you may wish to read this thread on the blackbird owner's club.

To start, here are the token comparison shots of both screens off the bike. Obviously the darker screen is the Cheetah. Click on the pictures to enlarge.






So the Cheetah is a little taller, a lot darker, doesn't say "Honda", and doesn't have the blacked out bottom part. That's why I ordered the "medium tint" screen (actually very dark tint), as the "light tint" screen (essentially clear) shows wires behind the instrument cluster. One last important thing to notice- the stock screen has a lip around the mounting holes, which allows it to remain flush with the front fairing. The Cheetah does not have this lip. This definitely detracts from the finished image, as you can see here on this shot of the middle screen mounting bolt:



As far as thickness, the two screens are about the same thickness, but the stock screen has a rounded buldge on the lip, making it appear thicker. From what I've seen of the ZG screen, this Cheetah is a little thicker. Here is the stock lip on top and the Cheetah on the bottom from the same distance away:



On the install, be careful with all 6 bolts. The top two have little acorn nuts that are easily lost, the middle two have rubber mounting wellnuts that can pop out, and the bottom bolts have the same rubber nuts in the screen. They can come out if you remove the screen with force and can fall behind your ram-air tubes. One of those buggers fell upon reinstallation, but luckily it fell through to the front wheel and I found it on my front fender. These two nuts are important, you have to remove them from the stock screen and squeeze them into the new screen. This wasn't easy, until I realized I can use the bird's key to force in the other rubber edge. When inserting the new screen, make sure you do it slowly and carefully, lifting the rubber nuts. ahh, rubber nuts. I didn't have any problems lining up the holes.

Enough blabber. Here are the comparison shots on the bike. I like the look of the Cheetah better, for two reasons: I Like the darker smoked look, and the stock screen looked a little flat/round on top. It's hard to explain, but take a look at this first shot. The lip on the Cheetah gives the front of the bike a little more shape instead of being just a big round jelly bean. In the first shot if you look closely you can sort of see the lack of flushness on the Cheetah, but this drawback is hard to spot unless you inspect it closely.









for fun, here are a few shots of the bird screenless:





and here is one last finished shot:



Post-ride conclusions: With the stock screen the wind blast hit my armpit level, now, as others have noted, it hits my screen. Things that affect this are- heli bars & I'm ~6'2". So it seems a bit louder when sitting up. As I approach crouch position, the wind noise just got louder (same as stock screen) although with the Cheetah, when I crouched really low, ALL wind noise just disappeared! All I could hear was the engine noise even at 80 mph. Note this is crouching with my chin almost on the tank, and looking through the screen. (which you can see through despite the tint- mostly) Oddly enough, I discovered that when I lifted up my helmet shield, i didn't have to crouch as low to find the "silent spot". I could even look over the screen in silence with my shield up.

Anyway, I like the look despite the non-flush-itude, so I'll leave it on for now. I'll also experiment more with the mysterious silent spot.

One last note: I just put on these Vance & Hines exhausts and since they're so loud, the slightly louder wind noise while sitting up isn't really that bad. Plus I usually wear earplugs on medium to long trips.