Like a lot of you on your little savages I too enjoy a nice long ride whenever I can and seeing as how most of my family lives 60 miles away I find myself on a straight two lane highway fairly often. This got me to wondering about a universal mechanical cruise control setup that I could adapt to the ls650. There were really only two that I found that had any credibility to them and seeing as how the price difference between them was about $150 my decision was pretty well made up for me.

BreakAway Products makes a VERY nice looking and very functional cruise control setup that is the crown jewel of aftermarket mechanical cruise control setups. Its machined from aluminum and has a very unique feature where the cruise control is disengaged when you pull back on the front brake lever. But, it is still $185 and that, I think, is a little steep unless maybe I was planning on a cross country ride yearly and had a large nice bagger to ride on.

Instead, I went for the Vista Cruise universal cruise control. At $35 it was WAY much more affordable yet at that price you do sacrifice looks. Instead of aluminum its made of a rigid plastic that actually holds up very well and is very strong.

I personally bought mine on eBay but these are available on cruisercustomizing.com and quite possibly at your local powersports dealer as well for roughly the same price. eBay compared to Crusier was cheaper only because i got free shipping on eBay.

For those of you who have ever considered such a mod I thought I'd take the liberty of putting together a little tutorial on installation and my thoughts on the whole thing. (hopefully it turns out as good as oldfeller's, lancer's, and versey's. not that all other tutorials on here are good cuz they all are   )

Step 1) open packaging

Step 2) Open beer

Step 3) If you get the Vista Cruise setup you'll end up with all the parts in the pic below



Allen wrenches are supplied to tighten everything down. Make sure that the kit you buy is for 1' bars! otherwise this kit will not fit and you may need to modify the parts in order for it work.

Step 4) I actually threaded the screw that goes into the arm that you secure the thumb lever to just so I knew it would go on without a fight when it was on the bike. This step really isn't needed though.



Step 5) Start the whole thing by loosening your master cylinder mount and sliding it down the bars and out of the way. You'll be placing the clamp between the kill-switch and mirror mount.



The clamp with allen head screws



Fasten the clamp around the bar loosely so it can be moved around when adjusting. (sorry forgot to get a pic of putting the clamp on)

Step 6) Attach the "arm" to the clamp using the bolt that is already threaded onto the clamp. You'll end up with something like this.



The newer model LS650s have a hazard light switch between the kill switch and starter switch; I don't know if this is present on older models or when they introduced it but the fact is if you have it you'll have to set the arm to cross the switches between the kill and hazards like in the picture.



Step 7) Next you'll need to decide which thickness of rubber strap you'll need to use. This rubber strap will go between the "speed set ring" and your throttle. In the picture below you'll see the speed set ring (solid black ring with a metal piece on it) with the two different thickness rubber straps.



If you have the stock grips then you may need to use the thicker of the two rubber pieces other wise chances are the thinner one will be for you. They have carved the thinner one in such a way that you can cut it thinner if needed. I have aftermarket grips that are really pretty big so I had to cut the thin ones even thinner than the prescribed "thinnest you'll need."



Once its cut and ready test to see how it fits in the speed set ring.



Step 8 ) Place the ring around the throttle and very easily fish the rubber underneath the solid ring. Again I didn't get a pic of this process. But, once you get the rubber placed around the throttle and under the ring you'll get something a little like this.



The ring will have three set screws placed around its circumference that you'll use to tighten the rubber piece down between the ring and the throttle. Make sure that when you place the rubber under the ring that the two ends meet under the throttle (mainly for aesthetics) and BETWEEN two of the set screws so that it seats properly.



Step 9) once the ring and rubber are around the throttle in a fairly tight fashion tighten the set screws down so that the ring clamps the rubber down onto the throttle.  After that it's time to screw the thumb latch onto the bar that goes over the switch. The screw you use goes through one side of the latch, though the hole in the speed set ring bolt, through the other side of the latch, and finally into the end of the bar. Giving you something that looks like this...





Once everything is together you can tighten up the clamp around the bars.

There may take a bit of tweaking to get the tightness just right around the ring but there is a cap nut for just that. I am sooo happy with the setup, at first I was afraid it wouldn't really look all that great but I don't think it looks too bad at all. The functionality is also great. Very easy to set the speed and it holds really well once you set it. I was thinking it may be kinda unsafe if you needed to decelerate at all really quickly but one flick of the thumb switch and it releases the throttle smoothly. Plus, it only clamps the throttle just tight enough to overcome the spring that sets it home but loose enough that you can still turn the throttle easily up or down to another desired speed.

Overall I am very happy with the whole setup. I haven't gotten to try it at highway speeds but at 55 it holds great and just using the throttle as normal it has no resistance to being turned. Hope this helps anyone looking at doing such a mod, I highly recommend the Vista Cruise cruise control. Like I said up top, these are available on cruisercustomizing.com and quite possibly at your local powersports dealer as well for roughly the same price.

Now I can Cruise the Vistas in comfort  
 

I have had a vista for a while now, and love it. I mounted mine with the thumb switch on the other side, so the bar was out of the way. I also have one on the c50. It is really great to warm up a cold hand in the winter time.