Long read, but bear with me! I've got carpal tunnel issues with both hands. I'm not ready to stop riding, and I4's do nothing for me, so resting both hands constantly and/or throttle lock is an absolute for me.
On my old '81 R100RS, the OEM throttle had a small friction screw, was easily settable for just enough friction to barely hold it in place, but easily rotate the grip where you wanted it. I never had to reset it. Come 2004, look for the same screw on my BMW R1100S, not there (liability lawyers
), so I went with the Throttlemeister, as it doubled as a bar end weight. Well made, does what it's supposed to, but never got used to it, it was hard to adjust while riding, and seem to always have too much friction. But then, I'm looking for something more than a lock, something to relieve workload on my hand, even when I'm twisting the throttle.
Then ran across a thread where someone rigs a
counterforce spring on the grip, to balance the throttle spring. Basically, attach one end of a tension spring to the grip, wrap the other end around the grip in the right direction to counteract the throttle spring, then attach spring end to handlebar. Depending on how tight you tension the spring, you can set it so the throttle stays where you put it, or just counteracts a lesser amount of the throttle spring. I set mine so the throttle stays where I put it when my gloved hand is touching the grip, but not "gripping" the grip. As soon as I loose contact the throttle begins moving back to idle. The amazing part of this is there is NO additional friction to the throttle, it's not a lock! The throttle now acts like a very precise adjustment "knob", because you dont have to hang on to it.
On my Beemer, I attached one end of the spring to the grip with a zip tie, wrapped it around the bar-end weight, then anchored it to the weight with a small screw. Then I loosened the bar-end attachment screw, rotated the bar-end to get the spring tension I wanted, then tightened the attach screw. Unbelievable relief and preciseness! And because its not a lock, it's safer I think, especially if you set it as I did, to go back to idle (albeit slowly) on losing contact of the grip.
If you just want to try it, you can just rig something using zipties, tape, etc to attach the spring, just to see if you like it, before you rig something more sanitary looking!
I've got a crampbuster on my Monster right now, but my hand has been acting up a lot lately, so I just found another spring in my scrap bin, and it's going on this weekend! Jeff [moto]