Luggage Options for a Bonneville

Google for Bonneville panniers/top box/luggage and most of the results are forum posts where other people are trying to figure out what the heck is available! And with plenty of "why would you put luggage on a Bonneville" comments ;) It seems there’s now basically no official, or at least easy to get hold of, luggage mounting option for the Bonneville/T100 models. Sure the bike is pretty and retro and the advertising is aiming at going for a sunday afternoon drive... but this is an 800+ cc all purpose machine and you still want to take a damn bag with you sometimes...

Its worth adding that third party triumph accessories seem to be more easily available in the US. I’m just covering what you can get relatively easily in the UK, and based on a couple of weeks of forum and website trawling. I haven’t seen any racks for sale in an actuals hop in London, despite it’s fair share of stores including official Triumph dealers.


Hepco and Becker:  http://www.hepco-and-becker-luggage.co.uk/

These guys do separate pannier rails and top box racks, or a combined version. Not cheap but not horrifically pricey if you want the combined one, which is £215. Probably the best looking of the two main options, but a bit OTT in the chrome department. It’s designed to hold their own boxes, which are pretty expensive (you'll pay £500 for their cheaper 3 box sets). I'm not a fan of the looks of any of those boxes and I’m not sure how easy they can be adapted to hold anything else. Given how on the Norman Hyde ones you have to move the rear indicators to make room, but on these you don't, I suspect the boxes mount too far forward to be comfortable/practical when you've got a passenger.


Norman Hyde:  https://normanhyde.co.uk

These guys do a separate rear rack (part HBK174, £120) and pannier frames (part HBK175, £125). Designed to take Givi boxes, so it’s easy to fit the most popular/easy to find boxes. The rack is functional but dull and I’m slightly concerned by how short it is and the angular grab rail. The side rails are black, which I’m not a huge fan of, but more importantly you have to relocate the indicators onto the weird poles sticking out the back so that boxes will fit. Some people have hacksawed those off and bought narrower tail light sets to fit between the bags. Seems like a lot of hassle/cost and once again the smaller lights are easier to get in the States (e.g. from www.newbonneville.com). Total of £245 makes them pricier than the H&B set.

Rentec:  http://www.renntec.co.uk/triumph_bonneville_sports_rack_carrier

This is the low end option. Top box only and looks very much like the Norman Hyde one. Reports of it’s strength seem to vary greatly. Rentec’s own disclaimer basic says it’s not meant to carry top boxes at all, just “luggage”, despite the website encouraging you to buy their huge 50L box on the same listing. Hmm. Sounds like spineless insurance back-covering to me, but didn’t fill me with confidence. At £100, it’s also not much cheaper than the NH one.

Givi:  http://www.givi.co.uk/My-motorcycle/?ma=TRIUMPH&mo=Bonneville-865

The biggest case manufacturer do their own rack. Part no SR226. This baby sells for £170-200(!) so def on the pricey side and also a slightly unusual design as it’s elevated with the grab rails to the sides. No official side rails/pannier racks for the Bonnie.

Official pannier rail kit:  

I’d seen these mentioned on forums but couldn’t find any official reference. Eventually got a quote from my local Triumph dealer’s part finder service: “A9738022 PANNIER RAIL KIT”, £106






Choices, Choices
After some box and pannier research, I decided I might as well go with something that will take Givi boxes. I quite like the H&B set, but the cost of their boxes and the fact you're locked into their parts meant it wasn't worth it. I didn't want the hassle of the Norman Hydes, and going on the lack of decent options plus cost I decided I'm probably better getting a decent large top box now and looking into soft panniers later (maybe via the nice minimal official rails)

Despite the cost, I went with the Givi rack. I quite like the design, it’s different and modern, but clever and doesn't look cheap like the Hyde and Rentec ones. It's also tough and guaranteed to fit their boxes. Plus the side grab rails will be better for pillions: nicer angle, more freedom of movement, no bar digging into your back, and when the box is on, it wont be right up against the grabs stopping them being used like the others will. I found them selling relatively cheap on ebay from these guys. Two days delivery, free postage, £165, sold! http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/nativeviking?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Here’s a good couple of forum posts that helped me out. The second has some nice DIY side box mounting on the official rails which I might copy...

• http://www.triumphrat.net/twins-talk/117172-givi-luggage-help-needed.html
• http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=782036

Fitting a USB Power Cable

I wanted:

• USB socket (everything I would want to power for now is USB)
• Cable of sensible length to get from battery to handlebars
• Waterproof, including socket and preferably so I 
• High enough amperage to charge a phone/tablet/camera (at least 1.5 amps, pref 1.8 - 2.1)

After some hunting around, I found there are lots of options for power cables, but not many that were appropriate. Lots are designed to wire into fairing/dashboards. The standard power plug for bikes seems to be the Powerlet/ISO4165/BMW Accessory Plug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4165) - basically a slightly smaller cigarette lighter. There’s loads of cables with those, or regular cigarette lighter sockets, and then you have to shell out on adaptors and waterproofing for those.

So, I found 3BR’s “TAPP” ports, which are pretty ideal: http://www.3brpowersports.com/products.php See here for a write-up: http://www.webbikeworld.com/r4/waterproof-power-ports

But, they’re slow and/or expensive to get in the UK and I was in a hurry (wanted for the weekend) so instead went for these from Powerlink plus one of their “splashproof” short cables. Probably not amazing quality, but arrived 2 days later for a total of £25.

Fitting was theoretically very easy, but eventful due to my own stupidity…

How to fit:

• Remove seat (allen key bolts at the back)
• Disconnect battery: unscrew negative terminal first then positive second, push existing cables out of the way
• realise that, as usual we’ve fallen foul of the worlds most annoying immobiliser, and reconnect the battery
• turn alarm off and put bike in service mode (alarm on, ignition on, hold alarm key till it beeps, engine off) and disconnect battery
• put up with annoying service mode beeping every 15 seconds till finished
• I realised there’s no where to fit the cable along the frame and it wouldn’t be secure, so the only option was to remove the tank and run the cable underneath it along with the other cables
• I cheated and just unscrewed the two tank bolts, lifted the tank for leverage and fed the cable through underneath…
• Remove the inline fuse and tape the open fuse cap to the cable to protect it and get rid of sharp edges. do the same with the cable ends

• Run cable battery-terminals-end first, downwards through the left hand loop beside the clocks along with the existing cables (do that first as it wont fit through socket first if you do it last… as I discovered on attempt number 1!) 

• Feed cable through gap under other cables on left side of tank…

•  …and out under the full/reserve switch

• Then feed up through the gap under the tank bolts, pulling out with pliers

• Remove tape, put fuse back, screw wires into battery with other cables (negative then positive)
• Use a couple of cable ties to fix to other cables to keep it in place
• Apologise to neighbours everytime you see them for setting off the alarm at 7am

Google Maps for Navigation

I’ve been using google maps (on Android) for a while now on two bikes. It’s basically pretty good and I cant see myself shelling out on a dedicated GPS, but has a lot of nasty pain points I'm working my way thorugh… Current setup is a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.2.

Pros: Syncs with desktop/browser version (via My Places in older versions and the profile/person icon in the new one), so you can basically plan a route or just look places up one lunch at work and then pick them up instantly on the bike. Pretty decent turn by turn navigation. Can have music etc. playing and it will mute that temporarily to play the guidance voice when needed. Can turn the screen off and still have the voice guidance in-ear.

Cons: Maps absolutely burns through phone battery. In London, Google have plenty of little details wrong: it thinks you can use some bus/taxi only lanes, often it thinks you *can’t* turn right on unusual circular roads (e.g. Aldwich), it even suggested u-turning on a bridge once, which would be crazy on any bridge, but this one has a fence down the middle! And finally the touch screen… I need to get some damn capacitive gloves (or create them: future project)

After testing with WiFi, 3G, sound and screen each on vs off, it looks like it’s the screen that kills the battery. You can use maps with the screen on, and sound and wifi off, for about 2 hours before the phone totally dies. With screen off and sound on via headphones, it will do basically a full day’s riding. Makes me thing that a great feature would be if it had a mode where the screen just turns off on motorways etc and just comes on by itself when you need to make turnings.

I’ve got a fairly decent phone/GPS holder (was a present, not sure the brand) which is more or less waterproof (taped zip, but water would probably seep in between the two zips in super heavy rain). Not being able to use gloves is a constant pain. Mostly because there seems to be some button combination that I often trigger by accident which opens up the mail app and tries to send a diagnostic email to Google! Fairly sure it’s something like holding down the volume/power buttons on the side for ages, or maybe its just shaking it loads… but whatever, it basically means at some point you can be happily following a route and then the screen is completely covered by a big "which app should send this email" pop up which you cant get rid of until you stop and take a glove off. Same goes for when the low power message pops up. Really annoying. Worst thing I found recently was when I’d set an alarm and forgotten about it. Basically maps is put to background while the alarm flashes and sounds… and never stops. On a motorway that is pretty damn annoying. Seriously, there is no alarm time-out at all!

I'm now picking between rides where I need the screen vs rides where I want audio/battery and sticking the phone in a jacket pocket with one wired earpiece. Works fine but not idea.

So, looks like I need to rig up: power supply for the phone (just done, post to follow); capacitive gloves; bluetooth headset for audio.

Southend on Sea

First day trip on the bike - Southend on Sea. Very The Only Way Is Essex.

The Bonneville turns out to be pretty good for riding two-up. Very easy to balance, not a lot of difference in feel/handling than when on your own.

I would not recommend ever riding in shorts (bad I idea I know, but had already changed and had to move the bike)… damn that huge lump of chrome on the engine is hot and very hard to avoid.

Also the grab rail, though probably the prettiest one ever seen, is not so practical as it digs in your back…

Buying the Bike

For comparison, the new and old bikes, shortly before I sold the YBR.

The triumph is a 2005 model. 11,500 miles at time of purchase (June 2013) which means it's barely really been used. Picked it up from a private dealer who basically wasn't using it and his wife wanted him to give it up! It went up for £4k and I only went to see it out of curiosity - a bit out of my price range.

I'd actually been looking for a Kawasaki W650, basically a Japanese modern Triumph knock off, but with a smaller more economical engine, more manoeuvrability and theoretically cheaper. But damn are those hard to find. A couple of months of checking ads and I gave up.

I'd read that the bike market was suffering due to the never ending British winter - basically no one was selling anything. Pretty much confirmed by the fact I was the only person who'd come to visit it. After I didn't get back the Triumph owner dropped the price by 250 quid, and eventually I made an offer of £3,500 which he took :)

Needed an MOT and I'm glad I made him offer to cover that before I paid - turned out to have a dodgy back spoke (I have a feeling those spoked wheels may cause some headaches in the long run, but they are pretty!)

Also glad it was taxed. 6 months only but that was about £45 (compared to £17 for the year on my old bike)... basically this thing is gonna guzzle petrol/money compared to what I'm used to!

It's also worth mentioning the failure I had trying to insure to test ride it. Basically no one would give me day insure as a new bike driver to cover test rides. In fact it seems that day/temporary insurance for bikes at all is fairly non-existent now and you essentially need to have an existing policy that covers riding other bikes. The guy was great though and we came up with a little compromise: he took me for a test ride on the back round west London (perfect as I got to check it was comfortable for the other half) and then he let me give it a short uninsured ride round the local block (very trusting, no deposit, though I had to leave my old bike there.)

Ignition

It's 7:30 am and I'm about to put the bike back together, since I spent almost two hours last night faffing and swearing at the thing, trying to get the damn grab rail off to replace it.

The last two weeks I have been mostly fiddling with the bike, buying things for the bike, working out what things to buy for the bike, finding I bought the wrong things for the bike, trying to buy things to find they don't really exist... it's amazing the lack of decent info out there on how to do some basic things when you're a novice. So this morning I thought, hey why not start a blog and at least some other poor bugger might find it useful!

This is my new, as yet unnamed 2005 Triumph Bonneville T100. New to me anyway - it's got about 11,500 miles (pretty low for 8 years old) and a little bit of rust and corrosion, but it's got less mileage and is in much better condition than the 2009 YBR Custom I just sold.

It's the modern, doesn't-break-down every day version of an old British classic. Basically it's a mid life crisis bike come too soon so I can fulfil all my Full Throttle fantasies, but at least I didn't actually buy a Harley.