The Luggage

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to be an annoyance on a trip it is inappropriate luggage. I mean, you wouldn't really want to pack a wheelie suitcase to climb K2 (although you could argue it would have it's benefits on the way down) :)

In my case (no pun intended) I needed to pack what I would require for five or six months on the road, as low down as possible to keep some stability, without complicating things. For instance I wouldn't want to have to spend two hours loading and unloading the bike every day!

I decided that I would fit everything I needed into two side panniers, a roll bag across the pillion seat, and a tank bag. This would also leave the rear luggage rack free for a petrol can or something similar. When I had a firm idea that I was doing the trip, about the beginning of June, I ordered all the luggage I needed. Several annoying weeks and no news later, I was forced to cancel the pannier order as the manufacturer could not give me a firm delivery estimate. By this time I was down to a month to go until the bike needed to go, with luggage, to the air freight company for shipping.

Fortunately I'd come up with a backup plan and contacted a firm called Caribou Cases http://www.cariboucases.com/ in the States. These guys take a large plastic Pelican 1550 case, and put brackets and locks on so it can be rack mounted as bike luggage. Pelican cases are waterproof, dustproof and more or less bombproof - we used to use them for backup tape storage at work and once one got thrown into a crusher by accident(don't ask). It survived, and amazingly still worked despite being a bit bent :)

Roger from Caribou reckoned they could get me a set of panniers by the 19th July, so I ordered. In addition to being tougher than the original panniers I ordered, the Caribou boxes also locked, and locked properly to the bike. Also they provided slightly more storage space, and even though a quarter of the cost was shipping and VAT, they were still cheaper than the originals. Happy days!

A couple of nail biting weeks spent wondering if I could hang all my luggage in Tesco carrier bags went past, and finally the panniers arrived on the 16th July, four days before the bike was due to go for shipping! A quick check showed all the relevant bits were there, and the instructions were first class (unlike my tank bag instructions, which I had to ask a German friend at work to help me with!).

So now the plan is to quickly fit the panniers, then fully load the bike for a shakedown test at the weekend. Then the bike and panniers go to the shipping company for crating on Monday. So I guess it is all going ahead then. Yikes!

Fraser.