Making it Mine - Part Deux
The higher seat came in today; I picked it up and rode it home. I secured the old seat across my tail bag by using the cargo net. Pretty odd looking. The guy at the parts counter said if anyone asks, I should just tell them it’s a three seater.
With the taller seat, it felt like a whole new bike. The seat is a bit hard, but the height feels pretty good. I think it really will solve the leg cramping problem. It’s gonna take some time to get used to it. It felt more like six inches than two. But I’m still flat footed at the lights. I am glad that the Blast has a low center of gravity. But it’ll probably take a few hundred miles to get used to it.
So, since the bike is getting to be more what I want, the luggage problem really needs to be solved. After looking at lots of Bonnie’s, the solo seat really caught my eye. And I got to thinking that this sort of thing might be possible with the Blast. Take off the tail piece and you can get to the tail frame underneath. I’d need to have somebody fabricate some kind of new tail piece, but since I’d be getting the back of the stock seat cut off and rebuilt, what would be some more custom work. But as I spent a long time staring at the bike, a cheaper solution occurred to me. I already own a lockable, waterproof hard case. It just isn’t a motorcycle case. The question has now become, how can I attach Pelican cases to the bike. The first thing to do was to find a top loading Pelican case for the saddle bags. They make exactly 1 size of top loading cases. It’s about the same size as the 1500 case that I use for my camera stuff. The 1430 top loading case is deeper. But what would it look like on either side of the Blast? One cheap and easy way to find out. Camera, tripod, Photoshop.
I didn’t actually check the dimensions very carefully until this morning. I was mostly too impressed with my faked up boxes. The one I got completely wrong is the width of the side cases. I vastly underestimated it. What I’ve got in the picture is about all the wider I want the cases to be. So, I spent a good bit of time rethinking the whole project. I looked at all sorts of cases: Givi E21’s, and Hepco-Becker Straykers both caught my eye. Both they both quickly run into serious money, and I’d still have to find someone to modify racks meant for other bikes. The only thing that would make these classy cases worthwhile is that I could then use them on any bike I purchased in the future. All I’d need to do would be to buy the racks for the new bike. But I’m still not ready to drop $500 plus to get cases right now. So back to the problem at hand; can I get Pelican cases to work?
While searching out more info on the Straykers, I wound up back on TriumphRat.net. Lo and behold, I’m not the first person to think of Pelican cases for a cheap solution to the lockable, waterproof cases. CatDaddy came up with super cheap brackets to hook 1400’s to the Bonneville. So, back to Pelican.com. While the top opening box is out, side opening cases might just do the trick. 1450’s are 14.5 liters of capacity, with outer dimensions of 16″x13″x6.9″, for $65 each at CaseClub. And I could even get Yellow! Seahorse has some competing cases. The most attractive one is the SE-520, which is just a little smaller at 13 liters, 14.9″x12.1″x6.8″. Just the case alone is $48, but they come with an option of locks on the latches. This would keep the cases looking a little less cheesy, because I wouldn’t need padlocks. $76 also at CaseClub.com. And as CatDaddy has done, all I really need is nuts and bolts, and a bent and drilled bit of 1″x1/8″ strapping.
For a top case, I can also run a couple of straps over the passenger seat and mount Givi’s E-250 universal adapter plate, and get a really nice trunk. Or in the short term, I could just buy some other giant Pelican, or Seahorse case to use as a hard tail box.
The problem with side opening saddle bags is that when you open them, the stuff will fall out. Pelican actually has some overpriced soft bags that fit the 1450. But I think screwing cargo netting into the cases will solve that problem much more cheaply. With all the holes I’d be putting into the cases, I might be compromising the waterproof quality of them. I think rubber gaskets and silicone sealant should solve that problem. The hard cases would give me plenty of room to put on new reflectors, or if I get ambitious, LEDs. I’d lose the place for my current helmet lock, but there’s plenty of room to hook up a new one.
