KarenWe took the plunge and bought ourselves (and bike) some beautiful new Turkana Gear luggage. Our combined Christmas and birthday gifts for 2021! This has revolutionized our whole nomadic setup – simply exchanging the old aluminium pannier boxes for soft saddle bags. It’s been an amazing transformation! Not only in looks, but also in the bike’s handling.
The old metal boxes, particularly the top box protruded far beyond the centre of the rear wheel creating something of a cantilever effect, resulting in a wandering front wheel when loaded. Whereas now, the saddle bags are more low slung and suspended downwards from the frame, giving a much lower centre of gravity.
We settled on Turkana “Hippo Hips” for the side bags at 30 litres each, and we also discovered the amazing 40 litre “Duffalo” bag as a top box substitute. Once we made contact with Flying Brick Motor Accessories in Cape Town, buying the gear was the easy part… then with a lot of ingenious planning and linking in of long suffering friends, we managed to get our precious cargo delivered all the way here to Northern Botswana. The eternal challenge of living where we do – no cool online purchases ever ship to our country, so we have become very creative, and have developed ways and means to get around this!
Included are also the wonderfully named “Oxpacker” bottle utility pouches and plenty of dry bags for the various bag inners. Unboxing was a lot of fun. Just like kids opening our presents. We immediately noted that one of the Turkana utility bags was just made for our fabulous 1.8l wine hip flask! The Duffalo Bag immediately became Biker Chick territory. Apart from serving as a very comfortable backrest, it is capable of being stuffed with plenty of random items, the gift that keeps on giving in terms of sneaking things in…
I also loved the labels inside the bags. These simple commands are music to our nomadic biker souls!
I completely believe that the bike looks way meaner and more business like with the cool black bags…
Apart from looks, it was quite enlightening to experience the altered handling skills of the bike, and for me especially (a somewhat nervous off-road passenger) the off-road experience is now completely different. Due to the lower centre of gravity the bike actually feels securely anchored to the road surface, compared to the way we used to fly precariously and heart-stoppingly over the gravel in the old days.
I do, however, miss the aluminium panniers for the joy of applying a multitude of travel stickers…. am working on the Biker Boy to see how amenable he is to stickering up the simple and clean lines of the bike’s fuel tank. Do watch this space to see how that one turns out!
