Carrying Stuff On The Bike, Part 2
This is the second part of a post I started a few days ago. You may want to go read it first.
I’m so pleased to have this top bag. But I haven’t used it enough yet to truly know that it’s as good as I hope it is.
As we’ve gotten older and more affluent our equipment has gotten better, so some years went by and I started becoming acutely conscious of how when we would stop my buddies would just pull their helmets off and stash them and their jackets in these large top bags they all had come to have on their bikes. I have chain-type locks on all my bikes for my helmet and I always just carried my jacket with me. I was getting jealous.
Then I got my V-Strom. And it came with two of the biggest Givi bags I’ve ever seen. These things are so big, when I travel alone on this bike I don’t ever bother to do any deliberate packing. I just toss it all in and have way more room than I need. At the same time, the bags were not quite so very big that I could easily get my helmet and jacket in along with all the other stuff I carry. I could, but not easily.
The answer was still a top bag and I bought one for the V. I was surprised it was not ungodly expensive, and the color was actually a terrific match for the bike, which I don’t care about a lot but it’s nice. It looks good. Now, once again, as long as I didn’t have a lot of stuff in the top bag I could put my helmet there and put the jacket in a side bag.
I’ve only ever gone down one time when I was moving, and that was at a very slow speed so no injuries. But every one of my bikes has been dropped or fallen over more than once. More than twice. With the V-Strom I’m thinking at least six or seven times.
I’ve concluded that the reason this top bag cost what it did was that it was not ruggedly built. After the bike had fallen a few times with the top bag on, the top bag was looking like it might not stay on much longer. It is mounted on a rail system and there were four bolts. The bolts were set into the plastic underside of the bag and two of them are no longer there. Cheap work. Now I flip a bungee over the bag just to add a bit of stability. But I often forget and leave it hanging there, although it’s attached at both ends and there is no end flapping free. I still have some concern about how if that bungee fell off it might get entangled in the chain or the wheel. Some day I’m just going to need to get a better top bag for this bike.
In the meantime, thanks to getting dropped, the Givi bags no longer make as good a seal so some small amount of water can get in. Plus, the bags mount onto pegs on a rail and one of the pegs broke off.
And now the ultimate of ultimates. I’ve had a very good (I think and hope) top bag put on the Concours. This bag is large–no problem throwing the jacket and helmet in. One thing I know for sure is that the mounting is good. I haven’t dropped this bike in a long, long time–and I really don’t want to–but I suspect the bag would hold up a lot better than the one on the V-Strom.
I had expected to get my second opportunity to put this bag through the paces on this 10-day Great River Road trip. That was not to be. On the day before we were to leave I was packing and doing stuff like checking tire pressure, and when I went to put air in the rear tire I discovered the valve stem is rotted through and leaks profusely. There was no way I could take this bike; I’m surprised the tire wasn’t flat. So I shifted everything over to the V-Strom and that’s my bike for this trip. I guess I’ll have to discover the flaws of this new top bag on the Concours some other time.
Biker Quote for Today
If I actually did “ride it like I stole it” I’d be in jail.
Tags: motorcycle luggage
