DL 1000 V-Strom Hard luggage
 

Hello everybody. My first ever thread. I plan to buy a new DL 1000 V-Strom and want to equip it with hard luggage (top box and panniers). I only plan to drive on road but want them good enough to use for a trip round Europe. Any idea's.

Craig

I have Pelican Cases 1550 mounted on SW Motech racks. I am very happy with the set up. The cases are permanently bolted to the racks but the racks come off in less than a minute. My wife made some Inner bags which makes taking out your stuff very easy. They are totally waterproof. You can fin info on them at twistedthrottle.com where it shows how to monut them on the racks. You will need to drill 4 holes in the cases to mount them on the racks. The racks are about $250 dlls and the cases where about $110 dlls each. I don't know what they will cost in the England. I have a Kappa top case which I can get 2 full face helmets in. I think it's a 42 litre. I have had it on 3 different bikes and it functions well. It is not totally waterproof but pretty good.

Ditto for the Pelican 1550's, they work great on the bike, there are a few pics on the caribou cases website if you want to see how they look.

Two downsides are size, they are a tad narrow so some bigger items might be hard to pack in and they are side loading which has advantages and disadvantages, mostly well solved by Garry's suggestion about inner bags. In regards to the top, I used a soft bag strapped onto as opposed to a hard box. This allows you to carry a tent, etc, very easily but if you don't need the room, the lockability of a hard box is certainly convenient.

Here's another link to hard panniers (alu) from Touratech: Touratech UK Webshop

But be warned: The UK service seems to be rather neglected :thumbdown: Otherwise the Zega cases are pretty good. The pannier racks are among the most durable on the market.


Hans

On my DL 650 I have a happy trails rack with zega (Touratech) boxes. The box are too big I alwas fill my boxs dose not matter how big or small.

On top I have a Givi Magnim or some such huge thing grate for trips in town but more of a pain on the road. Its hinged at the center line loosing much of the storage space to the lid opening it up can lose much of its holding. Now I use a dry bag more usefull and places on a the back seat its a nice back rest.

Soon I will getting a Pelican Case for the top I have camera gear and a lap top that will need a charging station. I have used pelican for long time there tuff waterproof. I have used them for camera and first aid gear on scuba trips the box will float to.

Cheers for all the info so far. I will have to get budgeting and have a look at the cases you have recommended.

Craig

they do (or did last year) a GT version of the DL1000. It comes with panniers and top box, heated grips and centre stand for £500 more than the standard DL. I've done 18,000 miles with mine in the past 10 months (up and down Edinburgh/London/Barcelona), and no problems at all. Not crash tested though.

I've bungeed a fair amount onto the top of the panniers too. They are fine cruising up to around 110 mph, but the bike starts to weave a little above that.

I would say touratech/metal boxes are overkill for road riding in europe, and they are fairly heavy on the bike and wallet.

I had a DL 1000 set up with Givi racks and bags and they worked great! They are super convenient and water tight. If you get the key-less top loading side bags you'll be happy. I sold them a while back and kitted up my KLR 650 with Givi bags, too. I rode that bike around the Middle East for and Europe for 8 months and they stood the test.

DL1000 Vstrom hard luggage / panniers images
 

See the StromTrooper forum post for many images with a DL1000 and luggage options.

I have SW Motech Trax on mine - pics on page 23 of the above post!