side boxes
 

for a long trip what kind of side boxes are good to get?

what is convenient?

someone mentioned that since you have all your things in there - it's good to get ones that you can take off and bring to your room where you are staying

else in some places you will be worried it might all get stolen .. and etc ..

what are the available options?

from my understanding / observation I see few choices:
* aluminum boxes and .. sometimes detachable?
* plastic like suitcase like .. sometimes detachable?
* material side bags
* cages to put in boxes

* what else?

what is good?

thank you ..


http://i.imgur.com/gSLlS9e.png

http://i.imgur.com/L9DoN5W.png

http://i.imgur.com/vi6brpH.png

http://i.imgur.com/mw17YMW.png

Love those Apple panniers. I should have kept my old G4 and used it as a top box. You just can't get anything into laptops :rofl:

Re the options, apart from a van driving along behind with all your luggage you've just about covered all the bases. Asking which one is best is fraught with danger though; ten people will probably give you twenty opinions. :rofl:

If you can fit GIVI V35 panniers on your bike, then get them....they are almost INDESTRUCTIBLE. I dropped my bike many times and everytime thought thats it they must be smashed...but no, only scratched, they protected the bike and my legs.....gorgeous product.

+1 for V35 s :thumbup1:
What ever you choose , beware the girth . Whilst this is nice in porno s it aint good if you have to split traffic on your trip . An example being in Germany ( where of course its totally legit doh ) i could get my lumpy old Pan thru gaps that some tenere s with side cases couldnt , likewise a blackbird with cases on too got stuck . Just something to think about ..........................

ohh wow GIVI V35 panniers
https://www.google.com/search?q=GIVI...d=ssl&tbm=isch

sure do look nice

will try to get them

> beware the girth .

gooood point

but I'd still go for safety first

I'm rarely in a rush to get anyplace

when on a bike I'm zoned out .. I'm in the groove ..

> soft on dirt

yes excellent point .. but I think hard cases properly attached to frame/chassis would be OK

> You just can't get anything into laptops

ahahahahah :p

I've been through all of them (except the Apples ...).

The Givis survived a crash at 70kph with nothing but a scratch, but they bounced terribly on bumpy roads. The 3rd box was almost empty and was a great place to store the jacket when exploring on feet.
http://pip-photos.smugmug.com/Motorb...ltar_250-M.jpg

The Zega cases are toploading, once you've had that, you won't accept anything else. But in the dirt, it really hurts if your legs are trapped underneath. I've had one come off at 150kph due to stupidity. Almost empty, except for a SLR - nothing was damaged.

http://pip-photos.smugmug.com/Motorb...79-benni-M.jpg

These are lockable soft bags. The straps are a bit unconvenient, but no complains other than that.
http://pip-photos.smugmug.com/Motorb...alkan195-M.jpg

For me: soft on gravel, alloy on the road.

By the way, if you have hard boxes on a tough rack, all the stress of a crash will be directed to the bike's frame. Stronger is not necessarily better ...

spip

Soft bags.

Unless you want to be as aerodynamic as a house and drag 20KG more weight than you need to. They're good to sit on though.

Soft all the way for gravel or dirt, I just found out what happens if you wreak on dirt with big heavy frames and boxes attached to your frame - it bends.

After some experience on a 250 around South America, in the future I´ll be looking closely how cyclists pack for RTW gigs. Less really is more.

If you weld on steel plate arms to the pannier bracket rather than to bolt directly,this will provide the vertical stiffness you need while giving flex, to cushion the blow to the frame during a drop .If bent just straighten and continue,so many are tied solidly together transferring the shock to both sides of the pannier mounts along with the frame.

Soft bags with soft stuff inside are the perfect cushions in a crash.

Clothes, sleeping bag etc.

Keep your valuables central in a back box, roll bag, tank bag etc.

Zoned out? Are you American? :innocent:
bier

Hard boxes don't mean safety. Sure, sometimes when you fall, they may protect you ... BUT ... as often as not, a leg or foot gets caught under a box. Not a pretty picture. Many many riders have broke legs and ankles this way.

What you haven't brought up is the bike your riding and the sort of riding you intend. There is now a STRONG consensus that if you're doing a lot of riding OFF ROAD on smaller, lighter bike then soft panniers are The Way.

If you never intend to explore off road ... or very rarely ... then Hard Boxes are just fine. They give the illusion of security and ARE convenient in some ways.

Hard bag users tend to Over load their bikes ... as hard boxes allow that. Also, consider the added weight that Ted brought up. Not only the weight of the empty boxes, but the weight of racks and all the hardware. It's substantial.

On a R1200GS, not a big deal. On a 400cc to 650cc bike, more of an issue.
Off road too much weight is a disaster waiting to happen. doh

In your first post you asked about detachable boxes. They ALL detach. You thought it would be convenient for carrying into your room. Yes, it is.
But do what the Pros do ... use bag liners, fit them in your boxes. All contents goes into liners.

When you arrive, simply open box, grab liner straps and walk away. After a long, hard day, this is a MUCH better way.
Boxes are heavy and sometimes a PITA to detach/reattach. Leave empty boxes on bike. In the AM simply slip liner bags back into boxes. Done, ready to ride. :D

I wouldn't have considered this a major issue - until it happened to me :( A low speed fall in sand without enough momentum to carry me clear of the bike. Only bruises and strained ligaments fortunately but that was more down to wearing MX boots than anything.


It's not much of a contrary arguement but I've had a "few" occasions where soft luggage has come off and I've lost it. If a hard box falls off you're likely to notice; I certainly did when one box came off and went under a following car last year :rofl:

Soft luggage does seem to have come into its own in recent years with an increasing selection of professionally manufactured bike specific stuff to choose from so maybe the days of lash-ups from army surplus or hiking rucksacks etc discarding your belongings as you go are over. I spent years trying to live down a reputation for dragging soft bags behind me on the road as everything but one last (long) strap came undone or broke.

Am I imagining things or have hard luggage system been getting bigger (and wider and heavier) as the years have passed? I've always been conscious of the width of luggage on whatever bike I've loaded up and in particular whether it's wider than the handlebars. Wider than the handlebars (or even close to it) is a huge no no for me as it's very easy to find yourself leaving scrape marks when overtaking in traffic. Metal boxes leave bigger marks than soft luggage :rolleyes2:

Well, yes, I suppose they do if you're happy to sit there in the rain with a socket wrench for ten minutes every morning and evening but my definition of detachable is being able to take them off / put them on in about 10secs each without tools.

The "Pro's" quote above made me smile. I read somewhere recently that there are only about 500 people making a full time living from novel writing in the US. I wonder how many are doing the same from overlanding? Any guesses? Journalists, book writers, people running courses on the back of having done an RTW or where the journey is a means to another end don't count. I doubt if many of the "usual suspects" here are not subsidising their travel by other means. Or maybe you are all funding lavish lifestyles from bike riding and I'm the one left looking forlornly through the railings as you vanish into the distance yet again :confused1:

Back on planet Earth, bag liners are something I've never got on with. I've tried various versions of them over the years but it never seems to work for me. If I use one big bag I can't get the thing back into the box next morning without having to rebuild the contents into the box from scratch. It never just drops back in. If I use a number of smaller bags carrying them into a hotel needs something like a laundry basket to put them all in. It looks like amateur night carrying armfuls of plastic bags into a hotel when everyone else is arriving with holdalls and suitcases. Somewhere there's a "pro" method of doing this but taking a couple of bags of dirty washing past the receptionist isn't it. :rofl: