This is a collection of experience and incidents such as I can remember some of my misspent youth and thrash through my later years.
The beatings will continue until moral improves.
Motorcycle Luggage – My first experience with motorcycles and carrying things came with buying my first motorcycle in 1974. That little Honda CB 360 was replaced with an 850 Norton more up to the task of hauling two adults and some gear.
Our luggage consisted of dufflebags strapped to the side of the subframe, a tank bag, a small soft-sided suitcase to hold the kitchen and food with a small duffel bag atop that.
This evolution in my luggage choices for my motorcycling can be oddly conversely reflected in my choices of luggage for otherwise travel. Those being my motorcycle luggage became hard sided and my graduation gift Samsonite hard luggage became soft two suiter a duffle bag and a backpack.
Then back to soft luggage with a true sport bike in the 1997 CBR900RR. Served well for commuting, travel and riding to and from trackdays. Easily removed for the track.
These RKA custom bags on the Honda were not waterproof. They had rain covers that offered rain resistance.
After the CBR, adventure bikes became my thing. These worked very well for commuting and swapped the money spent on trackdays to money spent on travel. Go farther.
The Jesse Luggage was great, though the mounting allowed the bags to slightly rotate the bottom of the bag in toward the motorcycle over time, but that was across 200,000 miles. Never leaked and I only had to replace the seals once.
The KTM got treated to Touratech Zega Pro bags. For a time I had a top box to fit my helmet while at work, back in my commuter days. Once I retired, I sold the top box.
Then back to soft luggage with all the latest technologies. Bright yellow interior so nothing is lost in the vast black darkness, completely waterproof. All sorts of compression straps and very secure mounting. So much so that the bike can be lifted by the bags when it falls over. Yes, impromptu testing was completed and successful. I prefer the soft luggage for camping travel and the hard luggage for hoteling it, or glamping and around town errands.
Now, I travel mostly camping and use the Wolfman Rocky Mountain Expedition saddle bags, small tank bag and a Kreiga US-30 tail bag. This set up works perfectly for my gear and style. I have a pair of Wolfman small Zip-R Bags WP I use for trail riding from a base camp.
These soft luggage options are a long way from the old Holubar duffle bags when we started this adventure nearly fifty years ago.
Along The Way 