Hi In Australia "BarkBusters" is the best brand of hand guards to use, majority of competitors use them, strong for minimising damage when the bike falls and good hand protection. I ran the "Storm" guard as it has a larger coverage, then for winter I would swap over to the "BBZ" cover. all fit onto the same backbone. Combined with heated grips I have never worn anything other than Summer gloves all year round. Within a week of buying my Multistrada I fitted BarkBusters (only the backbone on the Ducati) the standard plastic guards were never going to stop lever and brake cylinder breakages if it falls over. Go onto the website you will get a better idea what I'm saying than from my ramblings here. Never seen a VFR X sidecar here but there is a KTM 1290 sidecar running in reliability trials in South Australia.