The chain guard on my T700 was fine.. “Plastic” but fine! So why did I replace it with a raw silver aluminium guard from Rugged Roads? Purely cosmetic geekness, if I’m completely honest. Does the chain guard need to be metal instead of plastic? Nope! Was the plastic one prone to breaking? Nope! Was it overly ugly? Nope! Is the Rugged Roads one seriously better looking? Damn right it is and that’s why I shelled out £40 for it. The OEM Yamaha version is also nice but it’s typically ridiculously priced at close to 100 bills! And for what? A small piece of sculpted ali? No, not happening! But for 40 bills I let my geek side win and I’m glad I did as it looks great!
Installing it was painful, to say the least. It’s held on by the same 3 OEM screws/bolts that the stock guard is held on by but getting to 2 of them without a degree in contortion was a debacle to behold! Once done, however, it looks as good as I thought it would and works well with the new decal set I’ve just installed which will be revealed Wednesday/Thursday this week. All in all a nice but utterly unnecessary bit of kit!