Topic: All a matter of taste

[Kelly E]

My 94' ZG1000 Concours weighs about 700lbs. My gear weighs about 60lbs and I weigh 130lbs. So in reality my bike is carrying an average rider with no gear. The bike still thinks it's a Ninja.
My buddy says that I am almost dragging my saddlebags on some of the high speed sweepers while crossing the Cascade mountains in Washington on Hwy 20. The first generation Kawasaki Concours is a very capable bike for sport touring and it doesn't cost too much money.

[Kaze]

This topic is old now but I have a necromancy scroll of legendary potency. Plus, Delta linked me to it. It's better to reuse this post rather than create a new one.

First time to see Deltarider's bike. It's pretty damn cool. Simple and traditional. Black is my preference too.

As for the luggage, I prefer soft, lift-off saddlebags. But everything depends upon need.
I always used leather bags because I was camping. They are lightweight and easy to pick up and walk to a camp-site. And frankly, they were cheaper. But they suck in the rain.

Removable hard cases came with my K100. They clipped onto the sides and locked. You can't lock most leather saddlebags, so you either have to keep your gear with you or keep an eye on your bike. The hard cases also served me well on long rides through the heavy rain. They didn't leak even riding in 8 hours of heavy rain. The rider...leaked a lot. They are good when staying at inns, as they work like suitcases. You don't unpack until you're indoors, and they lock.

There is one final benefit to hard bags. If you drop your bike or some car nudges it and it falls over, hard cases protect the bike quite a bit. I guess if you're on a Goldwing then the side bags kinda "are your bike" but that's another thing.

[Deltarider]

[...] There is one final benefit to hard bags. If you drop your bike or some car nudges it and it falls over, hard cases protect the bike quite a bit. [...]

Nothing protects your rack and your bike better than a cushion. Hard cases aren't that. The impact they suffer will be just as hard on the rack and bike. When I compare my bike to a friends CB550K3 who has hard Krauser cases... his rack suffered severely - his left case looks ugly now and is no longer water tight if it ever was - and it has cost him to have the rack replaced. That was exactly my point. My rack is still the original and so are my leather bags. I like they look used.

[MauiK3]

Nice Concours!

[Kelly E]

Nice Concours!

Thanks 

I have dropped it twice since I got it. The saddlebags protected it both times and they don't leak a drop. Now I have some tip over bars so the bags don't have to take the hit anymore. I really love this bike when we're out on the open road. It's big enough to buck the semi-truck wind drafts, carries my stuff, has amazing range, handles really well, has all day comfort and it's pretty damn fast. I can't even drag the bags on it and I have tried. There's really nothing bad I can say about it.

[Deltarider]

Got confused. Maybe my English is insufficient, but for leather or any non hard material luggage containers, I reserve the word 'bags' and for those made of hard materials, I use the word 'cases'.
Also I differentiate between hard cases that came standard with the bike, like those on my GL1100D Interstate and any aftermarkets products for bikes, that didn't have them. Recently a German magazine stated that in that case the 'soft' bags were the better option, which conclusion runs parallel to my findings.

[Kelly E]

Got confused. Maybe my English is insufficient, but for leather or any non hard material luggage containers, I reserve the word 'bags' and for those made of hard materials, I use the word 'cases'.
Also I differentiate between hard cases that came standard with the bike, like those on my GL1100D Interstate and any aftermarkets products for bikes, that didn't have them. Recently a German magazine stated that in that case the 'soft' bags were the better option, which conclusion runs parallel to my findings.

Whatever 

[Kaze]

Deltarider:
It's not a matter of English skill, but flexibility. You know that English is a very fluid language, and especially with people like us who live within a subculture (motorcycle riders) there are terms that we use that other English speakers don't. And then we have our regional dialects too, so British riders and American riders have their own ways of saying things, and we have no power to unify what is spoken. Words change and you absolutely must be flexible. You just have to, and that's it.

"Bags" are all luggage. Even those aluminum boxes on KTM and BMW can be referred to as "bags" if we're talking about motorcycles. It's doesn't matter that they are boxes...they're bags too. Same with suitcases: hard or soft isn't the "case" (joke there). Most of us never, ever carry a suit in our luggage, but they are called "Suit" cases.

I could go on and on about the strangeness of English. British love to tease us about our usage, but the fact is, they don't speak the way their great-grandfathers did, and quite a lot of British English is FRENCH. I've heard British bikers say "Panniers" which is French.

Last point, a full-dress Harley Davidson, with fairing and 3 boxes on it, is called a "Bagger". Stay flexible cousin, or you'll have stress.

[Kaze]

To illustrate the usage of cushion...

My BMW fell over once. The hard "bags" served as a cushion between the ground and my motorcycle. The plastic material of the box is hard, true,  but it is more flexible than fiberglass and metal. It protected the more expensive parts of the motorcycle. So even though it is hard, we can say that it acted as a cushion.

One might argue that we should say "buffer" instead of "cushion" but cushion has more than one meaning. ...and I'll bet CUSHION is French...that came from Latin... lol

[grcamna2]

Lol   

[Deltarider]

Thanks for taking the time to explain, Kaze. Appreciated.