Just day dreaming about a long bike trip this past afternoon. Advice sought.

[ThomWV]

My bike camping trip last weekend really pointed out the shortcomings of my bike when it comes to carrying anything other than rider and possibly passenger. I have the 'luggage rack' and backrest that Harley makes and I picked up on of those round day bags that fits over the upright and the rack. The bag carried all that I considered minimum; sleeping bag, tent, ground pad, spare clothes, towel and toiletries, and of course the camera. By contrast my riding partner has a BMW fitted with a truck, saddlebags, a sling-over tank bag, a top tank bag, and a whole back seat with strapped down stuff. He was loaded like a camper and prepared for whatever came up. Fer goodness sakes he had set of light shoes for evening wear with him. By day 2 I was green with envy. Much of that is because on day 2 my round pack started splitting seams. We dealt with it.

So I was sitting around thinking how I could carry much much more, keep it all dry, and not over stress the bike or have any sort of permanent junk bolted on it. I like a clean bike.

The passenger backrest on my bike is also the support the the Harley luggage rack. The support attaches via 3 bolts through the top of the fender under the seat. The support is complete with a steel backing plate and the fender is firmly supported and attached to the frame in such a way as to make it extremely strong.

Now here is what I'm thinking. Maybe I could pick up a spare backrest part and weld supporting bracketry to it to carry something much more substantial in which to carry gear. I was thinking about maybe a high quality ice chest of about 50 quart capacity. Seriously, I was thinking about welding up a supporting structure that would encage a medium-large ice chest with its weight supported on the fender bracket and the passenger section of the seat. It could easily be made strong enough to support the chest. It seems to me that a closable qood quality ice chest would make a very good trunk in which to stow gear. It would be water proof and its hard top and sides would afford additional places to which things like tents and collapsible chairs could be tied. It would be easy enough to incorporate a lock too.

Granted it would look odd and not particularly attractive, but then it would also be made so it came off quickly and left little to show it had been there. If I'm on the road I don't care what it looks like, I can always take it off and lay it next to the tent when I stop if it matters.

So, what do you think? Keep in mind, I'm still thinking about Sturgis.

[matcom]

1. "I like a clean bike..."

"Folding Lawn Chairs"

:rofl:

sorry. :D

I have seen some pretty elaborate (multi-piece) luggage systems that attach to the backrest in my Cruiser Mags

:shrug:

[guitar man]

2. sounds like it might work

I don't like a lot of "luggage" attached to my bike either, but travelling back and forth 100 miles each way for a week at a time, I have to be able to carry a fair amount of stuff. I have a couple soft collapsable ice chest bags that I like to use, one large and one small. I can strap the larger one on the passenger seat and strap the small one to the back of the sissy bar, sitting on the rear fender.

I like the fact that they are soft bags instead of the hard plastic ice chests, it gives me a little more flexibility in strapping them in place, and the one on the passenger seat doesn't make a bad backrest either. :thumbsup:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. Long road trip? Maybe something to put the lawn chairs in ...

[ThomWV]

4. Not a "lawn chair" exactly, but you'd be amazed ...

If you read to the end there is irony here. Its all about the chair.

We met up at my friends house and he suggested I might want to take a spare one he had. These chairs fold up so as to fit in a cover about the same size and shape as a 1-man-tent, just about 5" in diameter and maybe 20" long. When you get set up for the night they prove invaluable; you really need something better than a rock to flop down on after 10 hours and 300+ miles on the bike.

Here was the basis of the problem I had, there is only one Harley accessory bag for my model bike. You can get it in leather or canvas but there is really only one model that the Motor Company sells that fits in the cradle of their accessory backrest and luggage rack. I have the canvas one but it would not really have made any difference if it had been leather.

The factory bag has two pouches sewed on it at 90 degrees to each other. The forward facing one slips down over the upright passenger backrest at the same time that the bottom one slips over the rack. There are two tie straps that pass under the wrap and pull the two pouches together. So the bag is well secured to the backrest and rack. The problem is that if you are also carrying stuff that doesn't go in the bag, potentially wet stuff or long stuff, the only place you can tie it down is on top of the bag or on the seat in front of the bag. In front of the seat doesn't work well at all because there is simply no place to tie the baggage down other than the turn signals and they are not well suited to the task because they are located so close to the bike's centerline. So heavy stuff gets tied down to a soft bag. As the miles pass by the soft bag loses its shape and the stuff tied to it starts to shift - it is just a matter of time until something will go very wrong. That is what happened to us late saturday afternoon, after almost 2 days the bag (which was stuffed full of tightly packed soft stuff to try to help hold shape) simply could not hold up. When we tried to pull the ties tighter the seams ripped on the bag and that left me with very limited ability to carry anything, at least until we did repairs and repacking.

As it turned out the next morning I got to rearrange stuff and actually it was the chair that saved the day. That is the irony, the thing that you might think was the most frivolous turned out to save the day. I was able to take straps and tie the chair securely to the rack. The chair was the only really ridged thing I had, the rolled up tent having only the tent poles wrapped in its center to make it stiff enough to tie down. By first tieing the chair down securly I had expanded my base to tie everything else, including my torn bag. Thank goodness I had that chair because it became the key to a trouble free ride the third day.

[Haole Girl]

5. I don't have a lot of advice on the subject, since I am so inexperienced

But one of the instructors, in the course I took, offered this piece of advice: "It's always good to take an extra bungee cord, on a long trip, in case one breaks." I made a mental note of that! :hi:

[ThomWV]

6. Not bad advice at all.

I have to tell you though, I recoil at the words 'bungee cord'. Back in about 1973 or so on a ride up to Daytona a fellow who was riding with the group I was with was injured horribly by one. At a gas stop he decided to reattach his load of stuff, using the ubiquitous Bungee cords. He was pulling them across the seat to attach something or another when the far side hook slipped off whatever it was he though he had it hooked to. The hook caught him in the right eye. He did not lose the eye but he did lose any real vision from it. I still use the things but they scare the hell out of me.

And as I say that one of the handiest devices I learned about on my learning trip was a stout elastic cord that had 6 movable plastic hooks on it. You could position them as needed on the cord, which was about 5~6 feet long. I made a note to get me one of those.

[Haole Girl]

7. After hearing that story...

I think I'll stick with these kind of luggage straps instead:

http://www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/Straps.html

Thanks for the warning. Glad that guy didn't lose his eye!