Panniers for 1974 Honda CB550
 

Hi all
Having ridden from north Queensland clockwise around australia and made it to Perth i have cheap leather saddle bags was wondering if anyone knows any alternatives to saddle bags or any good websites as i will be needing something more steady for the journey from Australia to Ireland beginning in September, i also made a make shift back rack which has served me well so far apart from a few repairs from cracks, does anyone know any good designs for this or were i could buy a aftermarket one???

Thanks in advance for any help

TheDonkeyandMe

Back in the day (1974) cutting edge rack design came in the shape of stuff from Craven Equipment. I used a lot of their racks on a number of bikes and never had one break. Of course they're not a ubiquitous now as then but the design is easy to duplicate. I don't have any pictures of one on my 550 but here's one on on my 400/4 -

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps41672977.jpg

The side arms consist of loops of tubing with bespoke brackets to fix it to the bike - you can see it a bit better in the ancient picture below. Easy to make as the rack doesn't have to be particularly accurate - the attachment brackets will take that up.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...ick/1972-1.jpg

No idea what panniers to put on it - probably not Craven ones as the classic enthusiasts have pushed the prices sky high.

Thats great ill see what i can do, a wonder can you buy them i wouldnt mind spending some money for the right ones

You can certainly buy Craven racks secondhand relatively easily in the UK but in recent years they've been at a bit of a premium as the classic Triumph / BSA / Notrun scene wants them for period originality. The one on my 400/4 came from the US and cost nothing.

For your 550 I suppose it depends how much effort you want to put in. Even if you buy a rack you'll probably still need to make the brackets that fix it to the bike but they're only bits of bent strip steel that you can shape with a hammer.