I have a BMW G650 X-country I am equipping for a trip. First trip is in 6 weeks around Europe, (direct ride London to Portugal and then pick up the other half and cruise about before a long way round back via prague.) Second trip is in July, all the way to Thailand. Once in Thailand I will use the bike daily and go travelling extensively around SE Asia.
Luggage options on this bike are rubbish. The rear subframe is made of a chocolate alloy and bends if you look at it angrily. There are two options I have narrowed it down to. Touratech make a luggage set, new rear subframe in steel and painted black (big improvement) with pannier rails, top rack and boxes for £1100. They will do me the kit for £800 without the boxes. BMW make a steel subframe for the later version of my bike. £440. Now the problems are that the touratech one does not have any pillion pegs, the BMW one has welded pillion pegs. The welded pegs mean that racks will no longer fit to my bike. I can make a plate for the TT unit and fit pegs but it's not ideal as my bike has a non-parallel frame design. I had thought about making a wing style rack and fit it to a top box mount, braced underneath and securely mounted to the rear pegs by a home-made bar. That would be strong enough to support a set of Wolfman bags, which is probably where I am leaning. My issue is that for £1100 I can more or less sort out my luggage needs, for £440 I can fix the problem and build on top. The saved money buys me a new rear shock and exhaust can. What would you guys do?