Jan 8, 2008

When I got the Sportster it had a solo seat and no luggage rack of any sort. Since I routinely carry stuff and often use my "play" bike for overnight or long-weekend trips to find nice roads, the lack of cargo capacity just wouldn't do. What I decided to do was get the little Harley rack with the intention of getting a textile tour pack or barrel bag.

I got the detachable mini rack in chrome (choices were black anodized and chrome). While I don't usually like chrome, one must have a splash of it here and there on a black bike. It looks great and is useful for small packages, but it's just not wide enough to hold the textile tour pack I have without letting the ends flop over the sides a little bit.

Then I had the bright idea of using my existing Givi E45N tour box. I've had this box for a few years and it has served me well on several bikes. It's big enough to hold my helmet & gloves and my Aerostich Roadcrafter suit!! It made perfect sense.

My original intention was to just get the universal mounting plate from Givi and leave it on the chrome rack full time. But the chrome rack has a curve to it and the universal rack wouldn't fit right.

The next option was to get the detachable tour pack mounting rack from Harley and adapt it to fit the Givi. So this is what I did. My friend Wayne had an old Givi mount available and, with his help at the Swanson Skunkwerx custom fabrication facility in lovely Northeastern Maryland, I took the mount points off it for use on the Harley rack. It took some drilling and some custom fabrication with some 1/8" plate steel to extend the mounting surface, but it worked out perfectly.

The GIvi box sits just in place of where the passenger seat would be and sits back far enough that I don't hit when I'm riding normally. Absolutely perfect!

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