Small tip to all potential riders buying or outfitting their KLR650C's with racks. Most versions I have seen bought or made have two attachment areas - one at the passenger footpegs and the other to the top of the fender where the old rack used to sit.

As most people know, the rear rack is rated at only three kgs...and they mean it. The sub frame has a small extension off the back of the bike that accomodates the rear fender and the bolt plate for the rack. If you pull it apart you can easily see how it is U shaped with two simple horizontal bars attaching at the back, there are no down tubes to take and transfer the weight down along the more substantial sub frame.

In the current configuration, the commercial racks do not transfer much, if any of the weight forward on the subframe at the foot peg mounts. The connecting bars going forward are almost horizontal, which means that the majority of the weight will still be on the rear sub frame rack extension, and again this is rated for 3 kg. Depending on the size of your load, state of roads, etc., at some point cracks will appear in your rack extension and will begin to sag requiring strengthening. If you don't watch it and let it go, the worst case scenario will be that it will completely snap off and your bags will be dragging in the dirt. I'm sure I have some pictures of cracks and worse somewhere around here...

There is a simple solution though, weld a bar connecting your pannier attachment loop to the attachment point where your pillion (passenger) handles are located beneath their seat. These attachment points are mounted on the sub frame proper and will do a much better job of bearing the weight and make the bike much more rideable as well. For models that have the handles attached, you can weld or attach your vertical bar from the pannier loop directly to the handle by welding, or by being more creative if you want to leave the handles on when the rack is off.

Hope that's understandable, if not drop me a line and I'll try to explain better. The long and the short of it is, I would not simply buy a rack, attach and ride off on a trip of any duration without customizing it first.