John, like you, I also have a Renegade exhaust on my '01 Mille R. This Mille is recently acquired and the exposed (very hot) pipes is something I had to address sooner rather than later. On mine, the left side bend you refer to already had a build up of melted boot plastic from the previous owner. Since the finish on the Renegade portion of the exhaust was nothing spectacular, with stains and discoloration in various places, along with the melted plastic, I opted to cover it with an exhaust wrap. The pipe had also melted the left underside of the battery box.
I used a 2 inch fiberglass wrap that I purchased from ebay. It is sold as "black," but it is actually a grey color after it is installed. Still, it looks OK to me, and I especially like the thermal buffer it provides for me and my extremities. My boot can now rest against it with out any melting. I can feel the heat in both of my heels if I leave them on the pipe on either side, but there is no damage caused to the wrap or my boots. The fiberglass wrap can even be touched momentarily with bare hands immediately after ride. Don't try that with bare metal pipes!
If your pipe is new and shiny, I can understand that you may not want to wrap it. However, for me, wrapping the Renegade pipe was the solution I was hoping for.
A few photos to give you an idea what it looks like.
:biggrin
