Each to his own Delta, personaly i think the grab bar is an abomination purely for pillion passengers to hold onto and i dont do those
Bryan, in all honesty, all my passengers have used it and were able to vary the position of their hands to their liking.
But - wait a minute - now I understand why there is so much talk in this forum about that silly strip (hoop?) halfway the seat. Most of us here in Europe took it of rightaway - as a useless and abundant extra that spoils the looks of the seat, but ofcourse UK passengers
depend on it, as... there's nothing else!
BTW using that strip, good luck finding room for your hands between the two of you.
Not good for handling the bike either. Whenever I had a passenger, my instruction always has been: hold your body as close to my back as possible and move with me, as if we are deeply in love, in a socalled 'uniform movement'. It's exactly there, where the grabrail serves so perfectly as the passenger can more or less press her - often lovely - body to my manly back, assuring our 'unisync movement'. I will not go in further detail, as there may be women and children present, but a good listener only needs half a word...
Where our passengers can react to acceleration and deceleration adequately,
your passengers, clinging on that silly strip, will react like a harmonica and possibly slide all over place, with the risk to come dangling to the side of the bike. I hope we can all agree that that does not particularly favour the handling of your bike. Worst scenario is when passenger will come to dangle on the
righthand side of your bike where there is - oh horror - not even that minimal grip.
In contrast the position two-up
we are used to overhere, is also best for aerodynamics. No turbulence in between the rider's back and the passenger's front like you have, due to the gap caused by the passenger's fists at that strip. Alas, no lovely body warming your back, but only her cold knuckles painfully poking in your loins.
But there's hope for you guys. At CMSNL you can order the 84101-323-671, the beautiful Italian made repro, which is an exact copy, but in much better quality than the OEM. You can then remove that horrible grip you have now, and may use it on the door of your garden shed, garagedoor, barn, whatever. But I cannot blame you, if you don't want to see it anymore and will throw it away as far as possible. Success!