So what is your opinion? After all, that is what the OP has asked for.
I suggest a re-read of the OP's 1st post:
How can one decide without pro/con input? He is asking for specific incidents of injury and opinions. But seems to me the OP has pretty much answered his own question.
I summarized my opinion of hard bags in my final sentence:

I believe many riders ask opinions to hear what other riders have to say. I'm following four or five ride reports on ADV at the moment. ALL are using hard bags ... and only ONE of these riders has any riding experience beyond a year. The fact is, new riders seem to use the copy cat method of travel and bike prep.

Very few have put in the hard miles on a variety of bikes using various luggage systems to really have an informed opinion. I always consider the source.

When I see guys like Colebatch (read his BAM road report on ADV) and TonyP, Austin Vince, Chris Scot and Ted Simon going with soft bags, that pretty much says it all. If one never goes off pavement then, by all means, hard bags are fine.

The other thing that sways me is a pic Ted magnum posted on another pannier thread. Since I've "been there, done that" I can admit I would not want to repeat riding in that sand carrying all that extra weight. Crashing sucks.



"After this, I swapped to Cortech Softbags for the rest of the jouney and it was BLISS !!! Lightweight, easy to pack, totally waterproof, easy to load/unload and worked as a great buffer when the bike toppled !"

I've traveled approx 150kkm with boxes and crashed a lot of times and I've never got hurt.
In fact I've never met anyone personally who has been hurt, just heard/read the stories.

Most people I've met who are on long trips seem to prefer hard-boxes.

And I'm over 100k km on my current hard cases (front, rear and topbox) with no negatives yet, weight aside. I can work up a good rant as well as anyone, on almost any subject, but the objective facts seem to involve a small proportion of actual injury to actual riders due to hard cases....with a small proportion of presumed injuries avoided by actual riders due to hard cases. Put me in the later group.

Besides, where are you going to put all your stickers, fifty or sixty countries from now?

But that's just me. Mileage varies.

Mark

I think thats true, but only of Anglo-Saxon riders ... from UK - US - Australia. In these parts of the world there is a real debate about what luggage is suitable. And I agree that the default setting is people start with hard luggage. Once the first big trip is out of the way, they realise the advantages that soft luggage can bring.

In the Teutonic world there is NO debate. There is no variety of opinion. In Germany, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the default mentality is that you tour on a large bike (almost always a 200 kg + BMW boxer, KTM V-Twin or Honda Africa Twin.) The idea of doing a long trip on a lightweight bike (or using soft luggage) has not even occurred to many teutonic riders I have spoken with. I have met hundreds of German overlanders over the years. Not a single one of them had soft luggage, and only one of them was on a bike smaller than the ones listed above ... and he was on an F650GS ... still 180kgs.

In the Anglo Saxon world there are far more people doing long trips on much lighter bikes around 150 - 160 kgs. XT600s, DR650s, XR650s etc ... For the anglo saxon world, a BMW F650 Dakar is a mid size touring bike, for the Germanic world its the lower limit of sanity. Guys like Austin Vince swear by his 115kg DR350s, that have been round the world twice, having done pioneering routes each time. Mac Swinarski's pioneering trip to Chukotka this year was done on 110kg KTM 400s, obviously with soft luggage.

This is why you get two differing viewpoints on what gear you should take. It because there are two different mentalities. I am not saying one mentality is better than the other, but for certain, one mentality is better suited to certain objectives than others. It depends on what is your objective and what you want to get out of your ride.

We Anglo Saxons are however still swayed by the marketing material from overlanding gear suppliers, many if not most of who are German. Since they had a 10 year headstart on 'us' for motorcycle overlanding most of the big aftermarket parts suppliers are German. So what the Germans deemed appropriate aftermarket parts has become the default for the whole world. Its only in recent years that Anglo Saxon companies like Steel Pony, Andy Strapz, Wolfman etc have really emerged, and begun making quality products that dont conform to the Germanic stereotypes.

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I agree that there is not much debate.
Mostly because we don't really care. If someone wants to use hard or soft, Suzuki or BMW it's up to them. We don't need other people to validate our choices.

Personally I had my first soft-bags catching fire in 1986 when driving a light bike so I guess the equipment has been around for a while.
I can't see that I recognize your opinion about scandic countries.

I am just trying to point out why there are two opinions on it for those who dont understand the origins of this split in philosophy. It may help other people reading this debate why you as a Norwegian are inherently inclined to belong to the "Hard boxes can do everything" school of thought and why you seem to believe that there is no need to consider anything but hard boxes.

I didnt say the Teutonic philosophy is worse, but I do think the debate and thought we put into the choice of bags is healthier in the english speaking world BECAUSE there is debate about it. And because people on forums like this say that "sure you can take hard boxes, if you are sticking to graded dirt roads and asphalt, but if you are try to do a more challenging riding program, then soft bags are better" or something to that effect. Rather than just talking about whether Hepco and Becker is better than Tesch or Zega.

I actually suspect the reason is the opposite. Its all done the same way in the Germanic countries - big bikes and hard boxes - precisely because everyone else there does it that way - therefore by not thinking about it and simply going the same direction as everyone else, they ARE using everyone elses opinions as their own, and thus using all the other Germanic bikers to validate their own choices. So in fact they DO need to validate their choices by choosing what everyone else chooses: big bike + metal boxes.

I hope I will one day meet a German touring around the world off road, on a light bike (sub 150 kgs) with soft bags, as it will force me to rethink. But that day has not come.

I will say it again for clarity because you seem to love taking me out of context ... you can take any bike around the world. You can take any luggage around the world ... if you are sticking to roads you will see in a world atlas. If you want to do 3000 km off piste in Mongolia on a 220 kg bike, with 20 kgs of boxes and rack (most aluminium boxes weight between 4 and 6 kgs each - 3 boxes plus heavy steel rack = 20 kgs), and 25 kgs of fuel, then you are probably not going to enjoy it as much as a guy on a bike half the weight, with gear that hea has bothered to think about. If you want to across Russia on the highway, or up and down the Americas on any road that appears in a world atlas, with maximum confort, carrying maximum amout of gear, then take any bike and any luggage. It doesnt really matter. Goldwing, Harley, KTM Adventure, HP2.... whatever.

If you want to be more adventurous, then you DO need to think a lot more about every choice you make. You DO need to think about what size and weight of bike is more suitable. You DO need to think about the reliability of the machine you propose to take. There is no point some guy taking his favourite WR450 around the world if he needs a full engine rebuild every 150 hours is it?

Like every Norwegian, you are probably a die-hard nationalist, so I will will give you a Norwegian example ... Amundsen was successful while Scott was not, because he DID think about the suitability of every detail regarding his trip, while Scott went along with the default settings for polar exploration. If they were going for a race to Tierra del Fuego, all the choices of equipment would not have been critical (but careful thinking can make life easier). If you are going to the South Pole, then you DO need to think about every detail. And you DO need to care.

And for people who are new to this game, then that decision making process WILL involve listening to other peoples opinions.

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Yes colebatch it's all about preparations.

If you are prepared you can move your limits and do remarkable stuff. I'm a big fan of preparations and by preparing trips I have done things that I thought was impossible (for me).

There are two things that have made that I have avoided a couple of destinations on my travels and it has been the ability of carrying water and petrol. The bike or luggagesystem itself has never been a limiting factor. The limiting factor has been that I don't feel comfortable with carrying petrol for more then 700 km and 20 liters of water.

But what are preparations? For me this thread has sadly nothing to do with preparations, it's just a mess. Sadly this mess have spread all over this place, which I find sad.
It looks like some people should know all about everything and even if they have almost no experience they go out really hard. A few times I have been asked if the 650 Xchallenge is a good travelers bike and I have simply told them that I don't fancy singles for traveling so I don't know, then I have given them the link to your page. There is no need for me to try to convert him to buy a twin. Why should I?
For the record I also have two singles but I don't use them for traveling.

When you refer to "English-speaking" it looks like you mean people from US or UK. Well, of course it's easier to argue in your own language but if you look at the users here they are from all over the world but it's not much Germans here. I have traveled with Germans (even a group with DR350s in Algeria) and I think it's completely wrong to compare people from Scandinavia and Germany.

I do think about the choices I take, but I don't give much for discussions like this.
As I said my luggage-system has never been a limiting factor. I have used it north of the polar-circle in the winter-time, I have crossed various deserts (incl Sahara in the summer) and I have been in situations where a major mechanical breakdown would have killed me in few days (thirst). I have been on trips up to a year and 50kkm duration and the system works.
I always work on doing things better and I have a few plans.


Sure, I do it all the time.

In a few weeks time we will do a test 1200GS VS SuperTenere and even if they are not the right bikes for me I look forward to it because they are both (probably) great bikes for thousands of people. What's right for me isn't necessarily right for other people.