I’m shopping for a throttle lock for my C400GT. I have tried the Atlas but they’re not universal as advertised. It ONLY accommodates grips with an inner flange of 2” or less. Ours are 2-1/4” in diameter.
Both the Wunderlich and Kaoko interest me since they’re mounted on the bar end.
Opinions on them for ease of use.
@wspollack please chime in with your opinion as I found the photo on your website
Thank you!
Really long answer:
1) I'm -- somewhat surprisingly -- very pleased with the Wunderlich (
https://www.wunderlichamerica.com/BMW_C400_X_C400_GT_Throttle_Lock) throttle lock ... although in pretty limited use, thus far.
2) I've never had a Kaoko (
https://kaoko.com/product/ccf137/#), although I've come across them for a decade or two, on various forums, and they seem to get good reviews.
I had forgotten about the brand when I bought the Wunderlich; I was ordering a bunch of Wunderlich products when I was excitedly waiting for the C 400 GT to make its way to the Troy, NY, Max BMW shop.
When I came across Kaoko once more -- I forget where -- I was almost sorry I had ordered the W, because the K seemed more sophisticated and was cheaper. But I'm not really sorry much anymore, and here's why:
- The installation of the W was a non-event, maybe a one-minute affair
- There are no adjustments to be made during the installation, or periodically afterward.
- The W has its own sort of magic way of operating, that is, um, more sophisticated than it looks.
For 99+% of its screw-in travel, the W does nothing. It just turns closer to the grip, as you turn it. (You can leave it unscrewed -- not touching -- however far away from the grip as you like, and it just sits there, like a bar-end weight or something.)
I had initially intended to get more use out of it because one of my daughters lives about 840 miles away, and I do superslab visits to get there, once or twice a year. But last summer, when I had blocked out Aug. and Sept. for this, it rained at her place pretty much the entire month of Aug., and in early Sept. she got covid. So I didn't do much superslabbing last year, and my 150 - 250-mile back-road day trips certainly don't require a throttle lock.
But I eventually got around to playing with the W, anyway, a few times, and it was surprisingly convenient. The thing is, as you tighten it, snug it up, against the end of the throttle, it imposes a friction fit against the throttle sleeve. Nothing unusual or unexpected there.
But what surprised me -- this is the sort of magic part -- is that the friction seems to be constant as you increase the throttle, i.e., roll it back toward you, to increase the speed to your desired throttle opening.
BUT ... if instead you want to
decrease the throttle, there is
significantly less friction as you roll off the throttle, i.e., the other direction. And that's certainly a good thing, because you don't want to be fighting friction if you want to slow down.
But the roll-on friction is still where you had set it, i.e., how snugly you tightened, screwed in, the throttle lock. So -- without playing with the throttle lock, in its snugged-in position -- once you roll-on the throttle again, you are still encountering the stay-in-place friction.
I don't know how it does this. That is, it seems to have one degree of friction -- and this amount of friction is governed by how tightly you first turned it against the throttle end -- when you increase the throttle, but a lesser degree of friction when you decrease the throttle. That's the aspect that impressed and surprised me. I expected to encounter the same level of friction in either direction.
Now, the negative aspect is that you have to take your hand off the throttle to tighten the W lock. At least I have to; that is, I'm not sufficiently dexterous to slide my grip over to the right, and tighten the W lock, while still maintaining a constant grip-and-speed on the stock throttle. And tightening the W is like a normal screw: righty tighty, lefty loosy. That's the opposite of increasing and decreasing speed.
So you slow down a bit during the tightening, but you can just roll on the throttle some more once it's tightened.
Now, OTOH, the Kaoko needs some adjustment, and some grease, and seems more finicky regarding the setup. (Recall, there is NO setup with the W -- you just put it on, as you would be replacing a bar end.) But the K can be manipulated while holding the actual throttle in place (I was reading the 1.6MB PDF from
https://kaoko.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/BMW-CCF137.pdf).
AND ...
- The K tightens in the same rotational direction as the increase in throttle, and can be deactivated in the same direction as rolling off the throttle. This means that you CAN keep your hand on a steady throttle position while activating and deactivating it.
- The K has those nice and large knurled protuberances.
Given those two advantages, if I were starting over in my C 400 GT ownership, I think I would opt for the Kaoko, even if it requires a little more setup work and possible periodic adjustment.
Here are a couple of short but I think comprehensive videos on the Kaoko.
The first is by my acquaintance, the late Rick Korchak, who was at that time the owner and proprietor of webBikeWorld (I was a stringer for him for a few years, for a dozen articles there). Interestingly, this video was modifying a Beemer scooter (although the 650, not the 400):
And here's another pretty good one, from Revzilla (where I've spent probably a few thousand dollars over the years):
Now, if anyone's found any of this useful, permit me to add a few rants, while we're on the subject:
- I think it's a cryin' shame that BMW didn't see fit to add real cruise control to the C 400 GT. It already has assorted sensors, AND THROTTLE-BY-WIRE, and the TFT, etc., etc. It would've killed them to add cruise? Probably just some minor programming, and virtually no cost. (This, and the stupid Schrader valve placement, minus factory TPMS, constitute my main gripes with the bike.)
- I had an R850R, and then a Valkyrie Interstate, for a total of ten years, and didn't use a throttle lock (and neither bike had factory cruise). But I missed them, once I experienced assorted forms of cruise, got into high-mileage, days-long, trips, etc.
- I installed an MC Cruise -- a real, vacuum-canister-involved, cruise control -- in 2007, shortly after I bought my first Big Burger (Burgman 650, which I sold five years later). Worked like a charm, and they've since moved on to electric servo mechanisms. I contacted them last year, but they had no plans for the C 400 series. They were thinking about a sort of "universal" version for ride-by-wire bikes, but the last I emailed them they had decided against that, too.
- My 2012 Victory Cross Country Tour (which I owned from '12 - '17) came with factory cruise as standard equipment. And it had actual throttle cables to deal with, i.e., no ride-by-wire on that. Worked like a charm; that bike had just a few faults, but it was the bomb gobbling up highway miles. When the BMW 650 scooters first came out, I was at the New York City motorcycle show, and chatted with a Beemer rep from Germany. I asked about cruise, and he asserted that it couldn't be done (or maybe was just too hard, or something) with throttle cables, and also that there was no demand in Europe for that, so it wasn't going to happen (and he was wrong about that, too, as my understanding is that some C 650 model had factory cruise at some point).
- I had a BreakAway (
https://brakeawayproducts.com/product-category/motorcycle-cruise-controls/) on my second 650 Burgman (an '08, bought in 2016), courtesy of its prior owner. (I sold the BreakAway, when I was in the process of installing a Rostra cruise control on that scoot, which project I abandoned in mid-work, but that's another story). The BreakAway required a VERY persnickety setup adjustment procedure, but it has the advantage over both the Wunderlich and Kaoko in that
a squeeze of the front brake lever automatically deactivates it. That's the only throttle lock I know that performs that useful trick.
- I had an Atlas throttle lock on that second Burgman for a while (after I gave up on the Rostra).
I had this installed by the Atlas owner folks themselves, at the Americade rally one year (it's at Lake George, NY, about an hour north of my house). So my point here is that the installation was done right. Nevertheless, I was on a back-road trip a couple years later, with my wife out back, and the Atlas lost a screw, or a screw loosened,
or something. In any event, unnoticed by me, the assembly rotated around the handlebar such that it prevented the front brake lever from being able to be pulled fully back. I found out that ride -- luckily, without crashing -- just how ineffective the rear brake only is on a Big Burger, especially two-up. I made an emergency investigative stop shortly thereafter, saw what the problem was, did a temporary fix, and rode slowly home. The next day I took it off and threw it in the garbage. Really.
So, the other take-away here is that I like throttle locks, compared to not having one, for my really long-distance trips. And that I like real cruise control, compared to throttle locks, and that BMW is doing current and prospective owners a disservice by not including it (if anyone from BMW is paying attention here).
Hope this provides some of what you were looking for.