Luggage, again.

Glad to hear it worked for you, Pete.  I had my doubts given the mounting challenges that beetle described ... and also that I included no straps!  

As far as water protection, I have not found any OEM or after-market option that is 100% effective.  And especially not for rain such as your crew recently experienced in that Ozian monsoon.

That said, I have come to just use thick plastic bags on the inside of whatever luggage I am using and that seems to work best for me.  No flapping, etc., of some near-useless cover.  And, like that saddle man ... it's cheap.  

Bill

Pete
I made a drastic modification to my Saddlemen bag, after it rolled off onto the exhaust and melted. I cut small holes in the inside corners of the bag and threaded bungy cords through them, they criss cross on the inside of the bag. They hook to the front lugs under the seat and the luggage rack on the back. I also reinforced the holes. I also got a piece of thick rubber sheet that drapes over the seat and glued the worthless mounting pad to it, it keeps everything from sliding. Now the bag is solidly on the seat and I can access the lid. Whoever designed this thing had no idea how to do it. Now it works and holds a lot of stuff.

Yes its weird looking but so am I...

Hello Pete, is it the large Saddlebag that you habe used and we can see in the pictures? Sven

You can see it on the back of my bike in the Cabal Australis thread on page 16 I think? Dunno if it's the 'Big' one? Probably?

Pete

Well my Givi lock rings have been here for a week now , and looking at them , Guess what, it doesn't want to lock onto the tank base ring properly.
If you look in Beetles photo, just above each Red cam are 2 little ears that touch the base of the bag or case and push the cams down into the proper alignment position. A soft-ish  bag base will allow these to flex upwards and one or more of the cams to detach.
Tested this by holding it all up under a glass coffee table and it locks in every time
The product is good, but we might need to insert a hard plastic or aluminium plate between the bag and the lock ring.

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That explains why my modified Guzzi bag kept detaching. Or does it? The base is quite rigid. Hmmm...
It locks on OK, and would detach when hitting a bump.

Maybe your not as rigid as you think Testing on the kitchen table mine would lock on 3 lugs easy, and with not much effort pull off.

On my GIVI bag, there is a plate between the bag and the mount ring. It seems to be designed with that imperative.

I had a look around at the various panniers and throwovers that were available. A mate spent £930 on a set of H&B panniers, topbox and frame, which works well for him. They were a bit big for my liking.

I had a look on Fleabay and noticed a few old Craven panniers for sale and bought a bought a pair of white ones for £62. They're made from fibreglass and were too flexible so I used Tigerbond to fix 1.5mm aluminium plates to the inside edge to brace them. I also bolted the corners to make sure they'd be strong enough. I then took the frames off the crappy flexible MG panniers and fixed them to the Cravens.

They've now done about 6 touring trips around Europe and seem to have held up well. They're also totally waterproof, not bad for 45 years old! They also matched the GRiSO white colour pretty well.

As I've recently changed the GRiSO colour from black to white, I've had them sprayed black too.

I wish I'd mounted them about 25mm lower than I did, but otherwise they do the job. As they're slim, filtering is easy too! Total cost - £75.

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They won't be to everyone's taste but they're fine for my purposes. My tent goes in an 50 litre Ortleib bag, which sits across the back seat and top of the panniers. My other half doesn't like bikes so I don't have to consider her!
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How they look now. I'll just spray the white bit between the frame hanger black.

The original MG had something like 4kg max load, but I've had loads more in these and they work fine, they're also 28 litres each, so have enough capacity.

You're confusing me... I thought you went from white to black with your bike?
Those big cases will look better in black though. Not in your face as when they were white IMO. Yikes!

I got me some Givi V35 for mine and with a bag pack, I got enough stuff to last me a week.
I don't camp so no need for me to carry a tent but I if I did, said tent would go on top of the cases side ways...

Hi, my GRiSO has gone from white to black. The white bike photo is an old one. The black panniers show the recently sprayed finish. I only fit them when I need them.

OK, understood.
I too, only install the panniers when going on a trip.
Pain in the arse to get on and off the bike with them on.

Thanks for the update on the photo 89millegt. Lost track of where this thread was.

It's not not too far at all. I have got to get back to the northeast with my bike for some fall riding. Hopefully the Adirondacks area.

I can imagine it's just got to be spectacular on some of those days at the height of it's color in the cool weather.

Hope you have a great riding season!

Ventura makes a nice custom modular pack rack system. Second one I've owned. Use the sport pack daily to carry my man bag and lunch vitals.

I picked up a used set of the GRiSO saddlebags for my girl. When loading up for the Not-a-Rally I discovered that the sleeping bag would NOT fit in one side. And you can't split the sleeping bag, you're pretty much stuck with one piece so I ended up using my trusty Wolfman medium duffle to hold everything as well as the large tank bag. No saddlebags.

While noodling this out I confirmed that the sleeping bag WOULD fit in the Ortlieb saddlebags (in fact, just what I used for the Datil Rally last year. Well the mounting system for the Ortliebs leaves a bit to be desired so I did some snooping around. Whoever makes the GRiSO saddles uses the KLICKfix mount and a fellow inmate here said that same mount was available on Amazon.com:
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So I ordered them up, installed them this afternoon.  I get fully waterproof luggage and more cubic room. To top it off, it's even more ugly than the GRiSO bags! What's not to like?!

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rboe that's brilliant! Ortlieb makes fantastic panniers and I love the ones I use on my bicycle.

Hello EveryOne,

I just Bought the Moto Guzzi Semi Rigid Side Cases. Wanted to ask if this not so smooth looking detail si right, or if it is not well manufactured.

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Oops. That looks like it was abused somewhere along the line. Time to return it for one in tip top shape.

Interesting saddle, rboe, what's the deal on that?

Wimpy bum. Stock saddle kills my bum, so I bought this Russell Day Long from Pete.

Bloody nice seat! Looks like warm dog farts but when I'm sitting on it I can't see it. Makes the bike an easy 600 mile bike.

But I do need todo something about the windscreen. Too much turbulence noise. I may have trade it for an Africa Twin.

It is fugly, but if it cuddles yer bum, who cares!

At least the Ortlieb bags cover a lot of that saddle up!!!

Anyone have an idea of price for posting Givi 3d600 panniers from UK to Australia? I can get a good used set for round 100 pound.

Try Here

Thanks. According to them it should be about 65 pounds.