Givi Bonneville Rack Fitting

I went with the Givi SR226 luggage rack in th end for the T100. £165 new inc delivery from ‘nativeviking’ on ebay. Took a couple of days to arrive, well packed, looks great and well made.

Downside was having to loose the official grab rail, which is gorgeous.

This should be an easy task, but god was it a bitch… I doubt the rail had ever been removed so that’s basically 8 years of corrosion. Took a hell of lot of elbow grease to get the 4 back bolts below out.

At the front, the two side bars looked like they both behind the rear shocks. Assumed I could remove the shocks and they’d just come off.. No. Turns out they are bolted right into the frame on the inside by an allen key bolt, with about 1 cm gap between the bolt and the rear mudguard. WFT? After some attempts to get to the bolt - not possible - I realised the only way was to remove the mudguard. Which was almost impossible. It’s held on with 4 little torx/star bolts (you can see two in the middle about), but one was so worn it took about half an hour with a succession of pliers and screwdrivers and help from my neighbour to get it off. Seriously, this was over an hour to remove 6 bolts!

Below shows the left bolt hole from the inside once the mudguard and rack were both off. You can see a semicircle cut into the plastic bit the battery sits in, which the bolt was also jammed against.

The new rack went on super easy. This time it bolts on the outside of the shocks. Thanks god. Only downside was the existing shock bolts were too short so had to switch for some slightly ugly ones that came with the rack. Will hopefully replace at some point. Was worried the whole thing would be a bit modern and industrial looking, but IMO it looks great.

1st Group Bike Run

I joined the GBMCC a month back and headed out for my first big group run, to Poole Quay on the south England coast.

A great bunch of guys, on a wide range of bikes, over about 250 miles. London -> Marlborough -> Poole -> London.

The roadside shot is from the Marlborough to Poole section, where I wound up in a little Triumph rolling advert! I don't think I'd realised just how much I've been suck on 20-30 mph London roads, or 70+ mph motorways; was great to actually ride on fast rural back roads for a change.

Poole is an interesting spot. A huge inland bay with an island in the middle, where the water is both warm and only knee deep 100s of meters out. Like a huge natural bath basically.

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

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.