This is a work in progress but I wanted to post what we have so far. We love to travel, so right from the start I knew I wanted saddlebags. The pickings have been slim and pricey for off the shelf stuff, so that left me thinking how we might roll our own. Cheap and simple is the name of the game, so we started with L brackets on the seat rail:
And then started work on a cardboard mock-up that will serve as a template for an aluminum plate. Here's Doug doing his best to draw up the plan to suit me; I kept changing my requests as he worked so it took a while, I had to fetch him a new eraser:
I am so fortunate to have a husband with endless patience; he's right there doing all the work while I just run and fetch. Thank you, Doug!
We'll be adding some more cutouts to lighten things up a bit and provide more lashing points, but here's the rough mock-up sprayed black and in place:
We used the handy threaded boss at the back of the footpeg bracket to bolt it at the bottom. We'll use shims between the plate and the L-brackets to move it out from the seat a bit, and a shim at the bottom to move it toward the swingarm; hopefully that will even things up and let us use a simple flat plate of aluminum with no bends required. I found a set of slightly used RKA bags on Advrider that should be here this week, we'll hold off on further work till we have them in hand and can see how they sit on the bike. You all please take a look, ideas and suggestions more than welcome. Thanks!
Sarah
And then started work on a cardboard mock-up that will serve as a template for an aluminum plate. Here's Doug doing his best to draw up the plan to suit me; I kept changing my requests as he worked so it took a while, I had to fetch him a new eraser:
I am so fortunate to have a husband with endless patience; he's right there doing all the work while I just run and fetch. Thank you, Doug!
We'll be adding some more cutouts to lighten things up a bit and provide more lashing points, but here's the rough mock-up sprayed black and in place:
We used the handy threaded boss at the back of the footpeg bracket to bolt it at the bottom. We'll use shims between the plate and the L-brackets to move it out from the seat a bit, and a shim at the bottom to move it toward the swingarm; hopefully that will even things up and let us use a simple flat plate of aluminum with no bends required. I found a set of slightly used RKA bags on Advrider that should be here this week, we'll hold off on further work till we have them in hand and can see how they sit on the bike. You all please take a look, ideas and suggestions more than welcome. Thanks!
Sarah
Bet you find something else next week 
