I crave a road trip on my bike. I want to go far and just ride. And when I get cold I want to put on more clothes. And when I get hot I want to take the liner off my riding jacket. Wait, where am I going to put it in? And where would I keep my travel stuff, like a bottle of water, my digital camera, spare clothes, a good book, purchased souvenirs from places far and remote? The only storage space I’ve got no my bike is a small compartment under the passenger seat. It barely fits a book. I had some trouble putting 3 CDs in there the other day. Yes, I do need travel bags for my bike.

Again my friend motodisiac to the rescue. He’d recommended Cortech as a good quality brand. Together we browsed the web on Mon night, did some pick-n-choose action. 10 minutes later we ordered Cortech Sport Saddlebags and a Super Mini Magnetic Tank Bag online. Well, more like 1 hour and 10 minutes later . They arrived at my door step last night (I highly recommend motosport.com). I got to play with them the same night. I will add another post about the tank bag a little later.

First impression - they are really cool. Easy to carry them together, easy to “unfold”, quality materials. Then I decided to read the manual. Big mistake. The manual that comes with bags addresses 2 different setups:

• the tri-bag setup - 2 saddlebags with a tail bag on top
• only 2 saddlebags

I was becoming increasingly confused reading it. 10 minutes into my futile attempts to realize how and where the straps go and how far from the exhaust pipe the right side bag should be I decided to be a man and threw the manual away. Once that was done it was smooth sailing. 5 minutes later the bags were installed successfully and securely.

The fit - perfect. The bag width - perfect. There is a zipper on the outer side of each bag to make it a couple of inches wider if needed. Pocket accessibility and zipper quality - perfect. Putting the bags on and taking them off - piece of cake. I even tried to mount my ass on the rear seat and see if the saddlebags straps going over the seat make it less comfortable to sit on. No. Then I tried to use the complimentary rain covers. Let’s just say that Cortech could have done a better job. It’d really helpful if they had 2 small holes to put the 2 straps that connect the bags through them. Actually I am not even sure if I am going to use rain covers at all. First of all I am not planning on riding in the rain. And secondly the bags would get dirty one way or another. And as the Cortech manual says “soap and water will make the bags life much longer”.

I am yet to try riding with the bags on my bike. And quite frankly I am really looking forward to it. Where are we riding next? I will keep you posted…

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 11:32 am and is filed under Motorcycles, Street, Travels, Riding, Gear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.