Equipment: Outfitting the motorcycle for luggage

One of the driving forces behind this trip is that Juli and I are not wealthy barons.  We simply do not have the funds to fly to Europe and spend the summer hiking the alps and looking at Renaissance art in Florence, Venice, or Mantua.  The closest we can get to having a traveling adventure is riding our (old) motorcycle across our own country, camping along the way and experiencing national parks, museums, and historical places.  

So, maybe you saw that picture of our (old) motorcycle in all its smallness and lack of storage space and wondered how we plan on packing all the necessary gear for such an undertaking.  After all, goldwings have huge trunks and side cases that would hold two of each animal that walks the earth (or swims; those hard cases are waterproof too).  Well, here’s the plan:

 First of all, the bike came with an original equipment chrome luggage rack, which I am very happy about.  It is very handy for strapping whatever you need for a day trip with bunjee cords.  Plus it looks really cool! 

But for the trip the rack is going to serve as a platform for a genuine motorcycle top box, something like this:

These boxes are from JC Whitney and are fairly cheap  (under $100).  I found other such boxes from Givi, but I can’t justify spending twice as much money for a name brand top box.  I haven't decided the exact size top box I want yet.  I am waiting until we have more of our camping gear so I can better judge how much room we'll need.  I plan to add a luggage rack to the top of this box, where we can strap longer things like the tent or sleeping pads. 

We’ll also have a tank bag.  I haven't done a ton of research on these yet so I haven't picked one out.  Notice the clear pouch on top where you can insert a map!  We'll stuff things like a cell phone, change for tolls, water bottles, anything we need to get to quickly will go in here.  The cool thing about these is that they are magnetic, they literally just stick to the top of the gas tank.  This could be an issue for riders of modern bikes with fake gas tanks!   

The side cases have been by far the biggest technical challenge.  We decided to go with hard side cases for their strength and weather resistance.  In the 70s you could get Wixom hard luggage, similar to what early BMWs had.   You could also get Hondaline luggage, but I think that might have been later.  Nowadays, though, nobody makes hard luggage to fit these bikes.  Let me rephrase:  It's not really the luggage itself that is the problem.  Ebay currently has 300 listings for hard bags that we could probably use.  It's the racks that the luggage attaches to on the bike.  There are lots of manufacturers of hard luggage and racks to mount them, but nobody makes one for a 1971 Honda.  So I'll make my own. 

Thank goodness for the adventure rider's forum!  

advrider.com

This is a great website full of motorcycle traveling enthusiasts.  There are some serious folk on here who have circled the globe, so there is lots of great info on everything from route advice to bike advice to bulls#t advice.  This is where I discovered the idea of using hard cases like Pelican or Storm cases for luggage.

 

These are Pelican cases sold as a complete luggae system. by Cariboucases.com.  They are industrial hard plastic, extremely durable (used by EMTs, military, etc) and reasonably affordable.  

Caribou does not, however, make a mounting system for a 1971 Honda.  So I plan to make my own rack that will hold these cases. 

There are cheaper alternatives to using cases like these, but we do have some specific criteria that a side luggage system will have to meet.  The cases will need to hold quite a bit, but they cannot be too big.  We need them to be lightweight and they must not intrude on passenger leg room, the way some home made systems do.  There are two of us on this bike at all times, and it's a small bike!  So, while I enjoyed reading threads on advrider about making your own side cases out of ammo cans, the truth is that the big ones weigh in at 15-25 pounds each!  Some people were clever enough to weld their own steel cases, but I am not and those would still be too heavy.  Some people used mermite cans, a type of food container that the military used.  They are large and not very heavy once hollowed out, but they are simply too big for our bike.  I could even use the cheap ebay plastic side bags, but I would still have to fabricate a mounting system so I wouldn't save much money.  The durability of pelican/storm/hardigg type cases is superior anyway, so that's what we'll go with.

I have read countless posts on advrider describing how to make your own mounts for cases like these.  What I will do is make a tubular steel frame that will attach to the shock-mount stud and signal light bracket on my bike.  The signal lights will probably be taken off anyway, because I'll want to move the tail and signal lights forward to where they'll be more visible with all the luggage.  More on that later, as I figure it all out.  

 Here is a picture of what my rack will look like.  The bike pictured is a Triumph Bonneville, so mine will be very similar because the rear subframe of this bike is a lot like mine.  I am not yet sure if I will connect the rack to my existing luggage rack or if I will run a piece of metal across the bike to secure the two sides together and minimize movement.

I will drill holes in the plastic cases and attach a u-channel of aluminum to the bottom, and a turnable block of metal or plastic to the top.  There are many different ways to do this.  One that I especially like is pictured here:

http://www.stromtrooper.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37568&highlight=seahorse

So the cases themselves will be Pelican 1500 or something similar.  They are pretty big, roughly 6x12x17 inches on the inside.  To save some money I may go with Seahorse SE-720 cases, which are around the same size.  These cases can be had with locks for $60 each plus shipping.  So figure in maybe $50 for the stuff to build the mounting rack, and I've got a system that costs many more hundreds to buy.  Of course, that point is sort of moot anyway since nobody makes a system like that for my bike!  

  For an idea of how these cases would look on an old style, naked bike, here is an airhead beamer with pelicans attached, image stolen from somebody on the advrider forum.  These are pelican 1520s, a couple of sizes bigger than what I was looking at.  I may get gray instead of black.  Also, I too plan on using reflector tape on our cases.  Can't be too visible out there! 

So there you have it!  Those plastic cases aren't pretty, but they're big and strong yet light enough for us.  In addition to all of these cases and bags, we'll also get a fork bag for the front of the bike.  That bag will hold our tools and a quart of oil, maybe the chain lube too, we'll see how big they go!  

Next I'll write about just what we're going to put in all this luggage!  Stay tuned!!!!

Jeremy B