Originally Posted by tedmagnum

I'm 110% sure that soft luggage is the way to go on these bikes now..

The idea of having a smaller offroad bike is to keep it small, light and offroad capable..

I decided to build my own racks.. Cost £2

Originally Posted by Terramax

Ted, I've a question. I was looking into have a rack specially made but the guy looking at the bike said it'd be a bad idea having any rack leaning on/ putting pressure on the exhaust. Is this true?

Anyway, how does your simple design work out? Is it protection enough? If so I may look into getting a friend do something similar.

Thanks

Originally Posted by tedmagnum

I'm 110% sure that soft luggage is the way to go on these bikes now..

The idea of having a smaller offroad bike is to keep it small, light and offroad capable..

I decided to build my own racks.. Cost £2

Originally Posted by The Cameraman

Afternoon Ted,

Team Cabra (my Brazilian XT225)is currently being awaiting for a few new parts, before I can get her registered and on the road. You know I prefer hard luggage and, when a customer brought a Bandit - complete with a H&B rack - and decided that he didn't want the rack, well you can guess who it went to! I reckon it won't take too much work to mod the system to fit onto my little Yammy. It gets better though, he had an unused pair of H&B Junior panniers, which are just about the right size for Team Cabra and offered them to me for £160. Yep too much of a bargain to resist. I'll let you know when I get round to doing the fit.

Originally Posted by Terramax

Hi guys, To give you an update I finally bit the bullet and bought a Sequoia Rack for my DRZ400sm. It cost 200 pounds (but customs got another 50 quid out of me), but it seems worth it. Here are some pics of it on my bike.

Originally Posted by tedmagnum

Well, I wasnt happy with the flimsiness of the 1st prototyre racks (see abouve) so yesterday I went down to the metal man and bought 3m of 6mm flat bar.. Again, horrendously expensive at £4

It's a bit thicker than I wanted but it was all he had which wasnt in "work".. 4-5mm would be better. Well, a few hours of cutting, bending, grinding, drilling and welding later, this is what iv made. Total price £2 plus paint... (I only used half the steel) lol. I'm going to drill holes in the ends to attach my bag hoops too !!

These are probably heavier than I need, if I was going to do it again, id use 4 or 5mm which will also give more flex !

On the left side rack, you can see its attached to the footrest mount and only through one hole. I'm going to build a bracket which utilises both of the threads for strength.

Originally Posted by Mickey D

What bags do you plan to use? (photos on bike?) The exhaust side does not seem to go low enough, have you mocked up with your bags mounted?

Cortech 35l softbags. The weight of the bags is mostly taken by the top straps so a strong side rack is pretty pointless. It's only to keep them from burning on the exhaust and have a way to stop them from moving.


Would it be best to have your bar go under the plastic side panel to avoid fires?

The side panels are no closer to the exhaust than prior fitting ! I cant see a fire risk ??

I would tie bags onto your custom bars, not add anymore weight or hardware. Design bars to follow perimeter of bags. Make sense?

yeah, thats the plan. My bags have straps which fit nicely to the frame and keep it still.. Im planning on welding on some hoops and eyelets in the all the right places.

I wanted to keep the rack as small and light as possible.. It keeps the bags off the bike and gives an anchor point.. Why does it need to be as big as the bags ?? To be , thats just adding more steel, more weight and more stresses.

I notice on the left side, that the whole plot is set quite far back. Would a more forward placement be safer? (less lever affect?)

Well, I need my bags set far back to give me space to move on the bike. It's pretty cramped and I cant stand not being able to move. Especially as our route down to capetown is going to be a rough one. Any further forward and my legs are touching them.

What about using Alu bar? Much stiffer (less flex) and lighter. Of course harder to find welder, but now so many do TIG and MIG, even in far away lands! I liked the proto-type a bit better actually!

The whole idea of this was to make them CHEAP and functional to a point of "that will do". Welding and hammering dirty old mild steel is a dam site easier in the 3rd world.

It was never meant to be a work of engineering.

What sort of sub frame strength can be expected on the DRZ? I've not heard much. Any RTW riders having issues?

The frame is small and not well engineered for strength. I would never use a full rack system with hard luggage on it without some additional bracing.

I read a Baja report on ADV, guy riding a Husky 610. The whole subframe broke clean off. He bungeed it back and got his buddies to carry all his stuff. This only on a one week ride and no panniers, just a small top bag.

Huskies are race machines ! Their frames arnt made to carry anything. But yeah, any dirt bike has the same issue and it would be mad to carry anything too heavy on it. Hence why im using softbags and low engineered racks..

I'm sure the Suzuki sub frame is stronger but what are it's limits? And for how long?

No idea.. im keeping everything as light and unstressed as possible.

Keeping weight mass centralized really helps with de-stress the stucture. That means not only further forward, but as close to center line as possible on left and right. (Outriggers are bad!)

Again, it's all about space (or lack of it)... I needed it all set back to allow space for my ortlieb roll back and give me space to move. I hate being cramped.

Let the fully loaded test flights begin!

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

I've also come accross these on ebay (US) which look pretty good. Soft luggage only though
Suzuki DRZ400S Side Racks DRZ 400 KLX400S DRZ400 sm : eBay Motors (item 170459109398 end time Apr-13-10 09:22:26 PDT)

I nearly bought them as im now on my 3rd prototype of my home made racks.

Building cheap, durable racks for a fragile aluminium dirt bike is more work than I thought.

Making them crash proof (so they dont rip the aluminium tab off the subframe) is my biggest issue, followed by making them light enough without using tubing or bending gear.

Originally Posted by Steve Pickford

Been reading this with interest.

I hope to be prepping a DRZ400S for my girlfriend's Chile trip in September 2010. Found a DRZ that's pretty much prepped. It's got a homemade rack system, I'll be adding strength by welding a strut either side from the rack itself to the lower subframe mounting points, this will brace the subframe. Luggage will be Ortlieb bags.

Originally Posted by doogle