Do you ride with your Hard Bags?

[Sir Price]

I don't know about riding with my hard bags...
Sometimes I ride with my bags hard.

And sometimes I ride hard with my bags on, :yahoo: :yahoo:

Seriously I ride with a top box all the time ,

a, to store gear and b for pillion security even tho she never touches the box even when playing hard.

The times I ride with the side bags is when they are full and I can assure you my bike doesnt slow down any .

My $0.02 worth.

It may take a little more effort to chuck from side to side in the tighet stuff but as I said its mostly ridden two up so its hard to say.

As for speed limiting when all three bags are on ,,,, well its a f..kin joke, how fast does one want to ride a motorcycle I ask ????. I and others have had the speedo needle well past vertical and NEVER had an issue with handling nor boxes blowing off. Sure the bike feels like its moving arond more at 200kph than at 100 but I think that goes for most bikes.

 

[Lambo]

Leave em on. Looks great. Looks slower and more old-mannish to the LEOs. Holds lots of potentially necessary stuff like your warm gear in the middle of summer in case you have to make a quick break to the Rockies.

I do..but I only have a 160 miles on the new FJR. wish the rain would stop.

 

[Shadow]

Never fitted mine, they are still in the boxes they came in.

 

[Patriot]

I've only ridden twice without the bags which was when my youngest daughter rode with me. I thought they would be in the way, but was wrong. They are fine attached with a pillion and provide leg & foot protection, so now it's 100% with bags. The right bag is my tools, maintenance, and repair stuff in the inner bag, and the right is misc riding gear like my PGR vest and day glo CMA vest for riding in the dark. Sometimes, also my CMA vest with patches.

 

[drboblj]

I ride with them on all the time. I bought the bike because of the storage (the touring aspect to me), and so they aren't coming off the bike.

Have you bumped into Ford Prefect recently?

He did appear in a book of odds and ends published posthumously by his creator.

 

[Patriot]

they'll pry my cold, dead fingers off my hard bags... :blink:

with FZ1 mirrors on my Gen I, if the mirrors will fit through the opening, then the bags will also

 

[Scottyfizz]

I bought my FJR because I love the way the bike looks with the side bags. I remember the first print ads I saw of this bike and I knew that that was the bike I had been looking for. And very rarely is the topcase on unless the wife rides with me.

 

[o_town_racer]

Off . Only on when its overnight or longer . I have a tank bag that is allways on and can hold stuff you would need for a day trip .

That's pretty much how I feel as well. I like the looks of the FJR better sans-bags for daily short hops. It still looks nice with the bags on, but not as nice as without IMHO. Makes it easier to maneuver in tight situations. My tank bag and the underseat storage hold as much as I need for puttering around town. Also, it keeps the bags nice & shiny with fewer scuffs and lovebug splatters. Long trips, I wouldn't be without them. I'm also one of those guys who does not like the topcase. I got one of those removable backseat rests to use when the wife rides on back. Works great.

 

[Fingerflicker]

I can fit a six pack of long neck MGD's in each one and safely transport them home without breaking. That's reason enough for me to keep them on all the time.

 

[JaminJman]

sometimes, depends how far I am going and where I am going I have the corbin smugglers truck to store extra gloves, sunglasses, maps etc

 

[DELETE-PLEASE]

I can fit a six pack of long neck MGD's in each one and safely transport them home without breaking. That's reason enough for me to keep them on all the time.

:drinks:

 

[Lawrence]

The bags were on the bike when I rode home from the dealership last month, at which point they promptly came off and haven't gone back on

I commute to work in SoCal traffic (meaning I'm lane-splitting anywhere from a few miles to 10-15 miles each way each day) - so the narrower I am the better (hence part of the reason for not replacing my '90 Concours with a Concours 14). Due to car mirrors, etc the fact the side bags aren't as wide and the mirrors only helps a little. When a 1/2" counts, I'll take every bit I can get - yes I know, I've been doing this lane-splitting thing WAY too long.

So, I ride with a Givi Trunk daily.

Side Bags only to go on for multi-day trips or if I needed the storage (really rare). 2-up travel, I'll add the expandable tank bag as well.

 

[Reaper]

I can fit a six pack of long neck MGD's in each one and safely transport them home without breaking. That's reason enough for me to keep them on all the time.

I can strap 2 six packs of MGD to the back seat with my cargo net and don't need the bags on. One of the things I liked about the FJR was that it looked good with bags on or off. The ZZR 1200 looked like crap with the bags on and the ST 1300 looked like crap with them off.

 

[FJR-Voltron]

I've noticed that the bike handles WAY better with the bags off.

I like the way the bike looks with the bags off. I don't like how low the bags mount on the bike... It makes the bike look kind of lazy.

Although, most of the time I have my bags on because I'm riding to work and I've got my laptop and bags to carry.

The funny thing is (as others have mentioned) that the day I decided to take them off for a quick ride, was the day I got pulled over for doing 91mph in a 55mph zone. -_- -_-

 

[Wee Willy]

For the handling issue, it's all about rotational inertia. More weight higher up from the contact patch of the tire on the road leads to slower turn times because you have to put more moment on the bike to roll it from R to L or back. The element added to the roll inertia term (the thing that you want to drive as close to zero as you can) by the bags consists of its mass and the square of its distance from the rotation center (I = m * x^2). The bags add a noticeable inertia term and DO slow the time to change bank angle when carving. The bike is more agile without them. For my part, I drop them whenever I ride with the sporties (like our Thursday 100 mile hamburger runs along Angeles Crest after work) and put 'em back on for all else where agility is not really needed.

NB, this inertia effect is really made more miserable when they're loaded up.

Cheers,

W2

AKA The Professor

Aerospace Engineer

Flight Controls Specialist

Simulation Guru

Designated Marksman

Nearly Roadkill

 

[johnny80s]

The roll inertia term (the thing that you want to drive as close to zero as you can) consists of a mass item and the square of the distance from the rotation center.

What did he say?

 

[BwanaDik]

The roll inertia term (the thing that you want to drive as close to zero as you can) consists of a mass item and the square of the distance from the rotation center.

What did he say?

Jestal re-incarnate?

 

[SHRuuM]

During the week for the commute the bags are on. On week-ends traveling, I check into the hotel, throw the bags on the bed, then its off to the twisties like the "Three Twisted Sister's" outside of Kerreville, Texas

 

[EXPDSGT]

For the handling issue, it's all about rotational inertia. More weight higher up from the contact patch of the tire on the road leads to slower turn times because you have to put more moment on the bike to roll it from R to L or back. The roll inertia term (the thing that you want to drive as close to zero as you can) consists of a mass item and the square of the distance from the rotation center. The bags add a noticeable inertia term and DO slow the time to change bank angle when carving. The bike is more agile without them. For my part, I drop them whenever I ride with the sporties (like our Thursday 100 mile hamburger runs along Angeles Crest after work) and put 'em back on for all else where agility is not really needed.

This only applies when the ambient temperature and the relative humidity are constant to PI squared.

 

[Wee Willy]

This only applies when the ambient temperature and the relative humidity are constant to PI squared.

Nearly correct grasshopper. That should be PI^(3/2)...