Finally.

It finally happened - I finally found a collection of roads in our area worth riding. I had pretty much accepted that there was nothing for us, and that we'd just have to wait for our Smoky Mountain trips to make the most of our 2 wheelers. But at last - salvation!

It's about 30 miles of interstate to get to the roads of interest, and then you get a good 70 miles of twisties and switchbacks. Unfortunately, once you finish the roller coaster, you're about 50 miles from home - that's a total of 150 miles, 80 of which is highway traveling. Tough trade-off, but it's the best I can find in Northern VA.

Pelican Case Closure

I'll keep this one short - I finally mounted a Pelican 1550 that I bought in person at Dulles Case Center. The case is mounted via two bolts that go directly through the passenger seat.

I drove to work today with my backpack in the case. The 1550 has a lot of room, and the mounting method seems to be pretty darn stable.

Back to the workbench

I don't know why I do it, but every few months I insist on pushing my skilled labor to its limits. This usually results in extreme frustration and disappointment. I mean, I don't know how to weld, and really, my ability to work with metal is limited to hacksaws (cutting), files (making up for bad cuts), drills (making holes), and JB Weld (gluing metal, if you will).



While most of my attempts result in failure, sometimes I succeed. This usually happens when I design a solution that's crude, simple, and does not require tight tolerances. Hell, our Honda Element is still roaring along with our homemade intake bracket.



So my latest endeavor consists of mounting a Pelican case to the SV. I looked at the Givi top case rack, but it's just way too expensive. I also considered buying a spare passenger seat, and mounting the Pelican case directly to that. Unfortunately a used passenger seat will set me back about $60. On the other hand, five-or-so feet of angle aluminum was $12 at ACE Hardware, so here I go again.

I'll post back with more as I get further, but I'm already under way on a bracket, made solely of angle aluminum. Said bracket will mount to the bike in place of the grab rail. And as soon as I'm done, I'll have earned the reward of shopping for my Pelican case!

Update #1

I've created 4 pieces of my 5-piece design so far - 2 pieces bolt directly to the subframe (where the grab rail originally mounted).



The other 2 pieces are take-offs, if you will, from the pieces that mount to the bike. I'm joining each piece with JB Weld (what else?) to hold them together so I can complete the bracket. If I decide JB Weld won't cut it, I'll have to figure out some other way to sure the connections...



Update #2

*sigh* - after many design discussions with my wife and my father, I was convinced that a much better design was to mount the case directly to the passenger seat (for stability reasons among others). So I've got the seat off and I think I've decided on a way to make it all work. I'll be picking up a Pelican case tomorrow @ lunch and hopefully I'll have it mounted for our Shenandoah trip Sunday!