We are talking luggage...obviously ! Drag your dirty mind out of the gutter ! ;)
Many moons ago when my bike was more arse up & head down than my GS, I took a trip across France and Switzerland sporting a set of Buffalo Textile Panniers that served me well on my journey, but now I have a lot more miles under my ever widening belt, and the BMW Aluminium Panniers have been a revelation to the massive benefits of hard luggage over soft.
I would even take it one step further and specify Aluminium hard luggage has an even higher advantage of color coded and or plastic luggage for obvious reasons.
If your planning a big trip and have yet to invest or decide upon what luggage to get for your bike, let me see if I can convince you to spend the extra for what will definitely be a good investment for your machine.
1: Security: By far the biggest advantage the hard case has is Security. It never crossed my mind when I bought my Buffalo bags that at some point in my trip, Between hotel stops, I may stop in a town or go sightseeing and would have to leave the bike unattended for several hours with all my belongings still strapped to the bike.
Heading off to look around a city or have lunch and realizing the bike and all your clothes and gadgets etc are loaded on the bike was extremely restricting.
Obviously Aluminium cases can be broken into, but it's significantly less likely and not as prone to the opportunist who is not equipped to get them open. To me the aluminium cases are as secure as any car for example.
2: Wear and Tear: If your in any way precious about your bike, then your probably not riding an adventure bike. If your like me and tour a lot in Ireland then also like me perhaps your favorite trips involve a lot of exploring boreens and back roads. I have often said the best roads in Ireland are also the worst roads.
To find some of the most beautiful scenery you often have to trundle down a pot hole riddled twin track and they are usually very narrow and lined with heavy gorse or thorn bushes.
With Aluminium cases this is a stress free exercise, but imagine now your on you brand new €25k Ducati MultStrada with color coded panniers and you can hear the slow sliding scrap of the thorns run down the side of your shiny red plastics followed by your deep heavy sobbing as your resale value gets stripped away in front of your eyes.
3: Weather Proofing: Good quality soft bags often come with either a waterprrof liner or an external elasticated cover, but it's no match to the bullet proof weather protection of a hard case.
4: Mounting: An added benefit that I have often found useful with my side boxes is the ability to mount my GoPro with a suction cup attachment or the myriad of useful attachments that Touratech offer with the use of a base plate you can switch between fuel canisters, water bottles, tools, camping gear or even additional storage if you absolutely cannot fit everything into the ample space of the 3 boxes already available to you.
5: Camping: I have seen Aluminium cases used for an array of novel situations. From tables, stools, sinks. I have often stopped for a coffee in a petrol station and if you put the bike up on the center stand the side boxes make a very handy instant bar to sit your coffee and sandwich on.
6: Memorabilia: Yes..I know it's naff but I have to say I have become fond of plastering my panniers with stickers of the the flags of the
countries my bike has taken me to. If you have ever watched the epic series on YouTube called "Not Dead Yet" by Oisin Hughes then you may have seen that the bikes he has used for his epic journeys never get sold or traded in. Instead Oisin keeps the bikes with the soil and dirt of his world trips and mounts them in his conservatory for posterity.
I hope to keep my GS till it blows up and then mount it in my back garden, (I don't have a conservatory) and I like the idea of sitting out on a sunny day on the deck looking back at my old steeds and seeing the flags to remind me of the adventures we took together.
To conclude, soft luggage has a massive advantage in terms of cost, but the versatility, safety, security and ruggedness of hard cases and in particular aluminium cases I feel cannot be beaten. I
I hope you found this article interesting, please share with your fellow bikers and if you agree or disagree I'd love to hear your feedback.
Thanks for taking the time to read !