How to attach a flag to a crotch rocket
Went to a Patriot Guard Riders funeral yesterday. Earlier in the week, I make a flag mount for the wife's vulcan and cobbled together one for my 650. The idea should work for any ninjette, I suppose.
I got a fiberglass kiddie flag pole and cut it down. Drilled a 1/4 hole in the top of the license plate mount support and dropped 6" of the flag pole thru till it touched the metal support underneath. I glued a decorative top onto the end of the pole.
Now, go to Lowes and get a 12x18 "garden flag". It'll be sewn with a sleeve on it instead of grommets. Get a 1/4 piece of PEX tubing. They sell in 3' lengths, you need 1 foot to match the flag. Slip the pex tubing inside the flag's sleeve. I put a big nylon washer on top and below the pex tubing as I slid the flag over the pole. This arraingement allows the flag to rotate freely. I used a nylon bushing with a screw through the side of it to hold the flag biased up to the top of the pole. If you look closely you can see the decorative top, washer, pex tubing inside the flag.
As for making sure the pole stayed vertical, I took two wide honking nylon ties and drilled two holes in their length so that they slip over the flag pole on one end and line up with two screws under my seat. If you drill them 1/32 too small, they have a nice friction fit on the pole.
When I'm not using the flag pole, I'll just put a small plastic plug in the hole.
We rode with it rolled around the pole and hair scrunchies holding the flag rolled. On the way back I just left it flying free and it did great even at 80mph on the interstate.
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It's all about the curves. If you ride, you understand. If you have a stick skinny g/f and ride, you're 1/2 way there.
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