Travelling
about Europe is great fun on a bike, but with the sort of sportsbikes
we ride what do you do about luggage? After years of having various
old bags and rucksacks bungeed to the rear seat, accompanied by
lashings of gaffa tape to protect tail units, perhaps it's time
to invest in some proper luggage and make life a bit easier.
It seems the French have also got fed up with
bungee straps marking the paintwork of their rear panels and have
come up with a luggage solution for those short motorcycle weekends
where you don't want to;
A/ Wear a ruck sack for the totally non racer look.
B/ Cover the entire back end of your bike in duct tape. Bugger
to get off too.
C/ Have aforementioned bungees or cargo nets all over the bike.
One
bit of kit to solve A, B and C above, is the Baglux Whoppa. This
ingenious design allows you to carry a load of jeans, T-shirts,
waterproofs, undercrackers, socks and perhaps anything else you
would normally carry under the rear seat hump. Of course, if like
me you own a '95 onwards Fireblade this won't account for much.
The bag sits on the pillion seat, but rather ingeniously avoids
the need for unsightly bungees and rolls of gaffa tape by employing
a discrete mounting system.
The
idea is that the bag is held on with zips, two each side. The
part of the fixing that stays on the bike is strategically bolted
below the rear seat hump and even when the bag is not attached
is reasonably well hidden. When the bag is in situ and firmly
zipped on, it stays there too, but here comes the bad bit.
The whole idea of carrying soft luggage on a bike is to get it
on and off your bike quickly and easily, whilst loaded, and zips
would seem the perfect solution. Well, in some ways they are,
but only if both ends of the zip (male and female if you like?),
are securely fastened to ensure sliding into each other is carried
out with ease, this was not the case with mine that I purchased
from HPS for the princely sum of £91.22.
The
zips were a bugger to get attached to each other as the ends were
difficult to slip into each other to get the zipper to zip. The
answer? Attach the luggage to your bike whilst leaving all the
contents sitting on the ground. This was the solution and made
fitting the bag a bit easier. However, when I first came to load
all the contents back in, they wouldn't fit; once the bag is secured
in place on the rear seat of the bike you lose about 5 litres
of luggage space because the seat is curved and presses into the
base of the bag. This also causes the removable reinforced sides
to raise themselves making the lid hard to close.
Anyway, I persevered for 3 trips like this until the zip puller
broke and that was it, back to the dreaded ruck sack. However,
I did send the faulty zipper items back to HPS who promptly replaced
them with ones that did look much better, so fair play to HPS.
Further practice and perhaps I now have the knack.
When fitting the bag to the seat fixing it seems best to do one
up zip up half way only before attempting to do the other. This
gives you more room to play with between the bag zips and the
seat fixing. It is probably still best to attach the bag unloaded,
or at least with the top unzipped as you just can't get round
the fact that you do lose luggage space once it is in place. The
odd thing is Baglux don't include this knack of attaching the
bag in the instructions. Well, they do on their site now ...
Anyway, I have just used the bag all weekend and once in place
it is secure and the waterproof lid is exactly that - it chucked
it down at one point and there was only a small moist patch in
my jeans when I unpacked them. I'm pretty sure it was water that
made them moist?!
Renntec carrier and bag
Nah,
bollocks to Tet's zips and having to leave your pants all over
the driveway while you struggle with your ever diminishing bag.
My idea is to divorce the bag completely from the tail unit
or seat with a nice rack in a discrete shade of black. This
one is the Renntec model for £55. Renntec also do a matching
tailpack for £36 which fastens very neatly to the rack
with two wide velcro bands and a quick release strap to add
stability and a bit of failsafe security.
The
rack fastens to existing mountings under the pillion seat. The
fitting kit includes the necessary longer bolts and a couple
of spacers to keep everything at the right level. The rack stands
just clear of the tail unit so there's no damage to your shiny
plastic. The only mod needed on the Fireblade version is to
remove the helmet brackets under the seat and to take off the
seat strap, no great loss.
The underseat storage area, such as it is, is not affected
by the rack mount so you can still get a tool or two and a bit
of a puncture repair outfit in there. The seat pad fits back
on as normal.
The
bag is good. It can be used as standard as in the pic above,
or a simple spiral zip undoes to double the height for those
longer trips where additional pants are required. It's not waterproof,
but Renntec do include a waterproof cover. Unfortunately this
appears to be made of rather too delicate material and mine
fell apart on the first trip. But here is it prior to its demise.
The bag can be crammed full in the privacy of your hotel room
and then easily fitted to the rack in seconds, while Tet struggles
with his zips, skiddies fluttering across the hotel forecourt.
But a word of warning: don't extend the bag to full height
and cram it with heavy stuff - the rack carries the bag high
up and behind the rear wheel, so some very odd handling traits
can arise with overzealous luggaging. Best to avoid the extension
and invest in lycra evening wear ...
Oxford products map
holder
I've
had on of these for years and it's been great, but with the
advent of plastic tank covers the old magnetic map pocket was
destined for the bin, until I cut off the magnet holders, D
loop and string for headstock and made it a far more versatile
item, but I got fed up with duck tape and Velcro holding it
in place, so opted for a new one.
Oxford now produce an updated version that is suitable for
plastic tank covers as it has 6 x suckers on the bottom and
these hold it firmly in place, well 4 of them do anyway, as
the flaps are too wide for my tank and don't quite stick on
the sides.
The map pocket itself is far bigger than the old one and means
you can have a wider spread of map ensuring you don't have to
stop and refold it every 40 miles. Try doing this in a gusty
wind and you'll find out it's not always a simple task. One
other bonus to the new map pocket is a Velcro securing for the
slot the map slides into and this helps keep all sorts of nastiness
out, including rain I suspect. The conclusion is I am generally
happy with this product, but it may succumb to the Stanley knife,
especially the side flaps.
Roadtourers ... Tour-racers?
Another
handy item for the touring gentleman is the ubiquitous tank
cover, rather essential for affixing tankbags and mapholders
to plastique tanks. These are made by Baglux and come in a variety
of styles and shades to suit most current bikes. They have handy
little front fasteners and rear metal loops to accommodate Baglux
luggage products. The only thing I would say for sportsbikes
is that the bags all site too far rearward, so get in the way,
while there is a great big lump of unused space at the front.
So prepare to get your needle and thread out for a mod.
Travelling
about Europe is great fun on a bike, but with the sort of sportsbikes
we ride what do you do about luggage? After years of having various
old bags and rucksacks bungeed to the rear seat, accompanied by
lashings of gaffa tape to protect tail units, perhaps it's time
to invest in some proper luggage and make life a bit easier.
One
bit of kit to solve A, B and C above, is the Baglux Whoppa. This
ingenious design allows you to carry a load of jeans, T-shirts,
waterproofs, undercrackers, socks and perhaps anything else you
would normally carry under the rear seat hump. Of course, if like
me you own a '95 onwards Fireblade this won't account for much.
The
idea is that the bag is held on with zips, two each side. The
part of the fixing that stays on the bike is strategically bolted
below the rear seat hump and even when the bag is not attached
is reasonably well hidden. When the bag is in situ and firmly
zipped on, it stays there too, but here comes the bad bit.
The
zips were a bugger to get attached to each other as the ends were
difficult to slip into each other to get the zipper to zip. The
answer? Attach the luggage to your bike whilst leaving all the
contents sitting on the ground. This was the solution and made
fitting the bag a bit easier. However, when I first came to load
all the contents back in, they wouldn't fit; once the bag is secured
in place on the rear seat of the bike you lose about 5 litres
of luggage space because the seat is curved and presses into the
base of the bag. This also causes the removable reinforced sides
to raise themselves making the lid hard to close.
Nah,
bollocks to Tet's zips and having to leave your pants all over
the driveway while you struggle with your ever diminishing bag.
The
rack fastens to existing mountings under the pillion seat. The
fitting kit includes the necessary longer bolts and a couple
of spacers to keep everything at the right level. The rack stands
just clear of the tail unit so there's no damage to your shiny
plastic. The only mod needed on the Fireblade version is to
remove the helmet brackets under the seat and to take off the
seat strap, no great loss.
The
bag is good. It can be used as standard as in the pic above,
or a simple spiral zip undoes to double the height for those
longer trips where additional pants are required. It's not waterproof,
but Renntec do include a waterproof cover. Unfortunately this
appears to be made of rather too delicate material and mine
fell apart on the first trip. But here is it prior to its demise.
I've
had on of these for years and it's been great, but with the
advent of plastic tank covers the old magnetic map pocket was
destined for the bin, until I cut off the magnet holders, D
loop and string for headstock and made it a far more versatile
item, but I got fed up with duck tape and Velcro holding it
in place, so opted for a new one. 
Another
handy item for the touring gentleman is the ubiquitous tank
cover, rather essential for affixing tankbags and mapholders
to plastique tanks. These are made by Baglux and come in a variety
of styles and shades to suit most current bikes. They have handy
little front fasteners and rear metal loops to accommodate Baglux
luggage products. The only thing I would say for sportsbikes
is that the bags all site too far rearward, so get in the way,
while there is a great big lump of unused space at the front.
So prepare to get your needle and thread out for a mod.