The new Tusk Guards were purchased from Rocky Mountain ATV. The price was $169.99, but I had over $25 in RMCash credits to apply to the order, plus I picked up another $8.50 in RMCash credits from the guard purchase itself. They are yet to be installed, but I'm starting the post upon delivery and will update with the installation.
Each side (bar only) weighed in at 8 pounds (16 total pounds). I was quite surprised that they weighed more than the clearly beefier Nomads that weighted a combined 15 pounds. The hardware that accompanies the bars was another 1 pound. However, that's probably a net wash or only a small bump against the stock hardware weight.
The product came with two pages of nicely printed installation instructions that seem to be clear and concise, although installation actually looks fairly intuitive.
Stay tuned for an update of the installation...
UPDATE 1:
The Tusk Guard installation is not, in any way, interfered with by my Ricochet bash plate. There are two mounting points on the down tube and another at the upper subframe bolt. I didn't have to remove the bash plate to install the guards.
UPDATE 2:
As mentioned, I had to purchase a new set of crash guards (Tusks) when Nomad Rider lagged in shipping out a replacement guard...which as of this date (March 22, 2017) I have not received and have given up....to prepare the motorcycle for the first of 2017 rally.
Well, the first rally at Devil's Creek put the Tusk Crash Guards to the test, indeed. My son Sam was riding the KLR650, I was on our DR650. On the first day of the three day rally, our group of five making our way between trails on a paved road. Sam was 4th, I was 5th. The leader decided to make an abrupt left turn causing everyone to lockup. The KLR on its D606 knobbies went down at about 25-30 mph on the right side. My son was able to get up with nothing more than a few superficial wounds...due to having good gear on...and the Tusk Bars did their job, took the fall and suffered only minor inward bend that isn't enough to require replacement. We continued the rally and completed it two days later.
There's first hand experience that the Tusk did its job in a lowside.
