There is a lot of stuff on the board about mirrors, but I don't think I've seen this idea before, though I may have missed it.
Anyway, I hate my CalVin's mirrors. I find them too tall, nerdy and insect-like to match the bike's custom cruiser character.
I took off the mirrors, removed the needlessly baroque mounting adapters, threaded the bottom portion of the stem, using a 10 x 1.25 mm die, and screwed them back in. I could not reuse the stock cone nuts, which are threaded for Guzzi's rube-goldberg mounting system, so I substituted a thin 10mm nut to lock the stem into the mount.
This lowered the mirror height by about 1.5 inches, as well as cleaning up the overly-fussy handlebar control area.
I would like to have threaded another 3/4 inches of the stem and cut off the excess bottom portion—thereby dropping the mirrors by a similar amount; but the stem is 12 mm thick, so it would have to be turned down first, and I have no access to a lathe.
In any case, I still wanted less and lower-profile mirrorage. So I bought a pair of Emgo “Lil Cruiser” mirrors form Amazon, for a whopping 11 dollars the pair. These mirrors are, amazingly, nearly identical to the stock Guzzi mirrors in both design and construction. They both have similar shapes, though the Emgos are about 25% smaller in area. They both have chromed plastic backs and chromed steel stems, bent at about the same angle. And they apparently have almost identically curved convex lenses, because they both produce an image of almost exactly the same size.
The Emgo stems are only about 11 mm thick. I'd prefer the slightly chunkier, stock look to the stems, but it is what it is. And besides, the thinner stems could be threaded as much as I wanted, just using my hand-held die and die stock.
The are some other cool things about these aftermarket mirrors. For one thing, they have the same 10 x 1.25 mm thread on both ends, so you can cut and re-thread either the short or long end. That gives you the choice of a mirror that sticks out a bit further to the side, at the cost of less height reduction.
Also, the Emgo mirror heads are directly interchangeable with the stockers, so you could have short, skinny stems and big, fat heads, if you prefer. (Not a comment on womanhood.)
Anyway, it was a fun, engaging, low-cost little project. The information I offer here is for the sake of other Guzzi cruiser owners (where the upright handle bar design makes bar-end mirrors impracticable) who want a low-cost option to the Eiffel tower stock set up, or who have found a different solution and would like to share it. If you have any technical corrections, or want more info, I'll be much obliged.
On the other hand, if you want to criticize, or use my post as a springboard for your own political, philosophical or aesthetic rants, rest assured all such replies will be cheerfully ignored.
I hope all the pics load, so you can see the various versions compared.
[imghttp://s20.postimg.org/hd6gnx525/Stok_on_R_Emgo_on_L.jpg]http://[/img]
[imghttp://s20.postimg.org/96egwcezh/Shortened_Emgo_on_L_shortened_stock_on_R.jpg][/img]
[imghttp://s20.postimg.org/dtpkv88nx/Short_stock.jpg][/img]
