I wouldn't have considered this a major issue - until it happened to me A low speed fall in sand without enough momentum to carry me clear of the bike. Only bruises and strained ligaments fortunately but that was more down to wearing MX boots than anything.


It's not much of a contrary arguement but I've had a "few" occasions where soft luggage has come off and I've lost it. If a hard box falls off you're likely to notice; I certainly did when one box came off and went under a following car last year

Soft luggage does seem to have come into its own in recent years with an increasing selection of professionally manufactured bike specific stuff to choose from so maybe the days of lash-ups from army surplus or hiking rucksacks etc discarding your belongings as you go are over. I spent years trying to live down a reputation for dragging soft bags behind me on the road as everything but one last (long) strap came undone or broke.

Am I imagining things or have hard luggage system been getting bigger (and wider and heavier) as the years have passed? I've always been conscious of the width of luggage on whatever bike I've loaded up and in particular whether it's wider than the handlebars. Wider than the handlebars (or even close to it) is a huge no no for me as it's very easy to find yourself leaving scrape marks when overtaking in traffic. Metal boxes leave bigger marks than soft luggage

Well, yes, I suppose they do if you're happy to sit there in the rain with a socket wrench for ten minutes every morning and evening but my definition of detachable is being able to take them off / put them on in about 10secs each without tools.

The "Pro's" quote above made me smile. I read somewhere recently that there are only about 500 people making a full time living from novel writing in the US. I wonder how many are doing the same from overlanding? Any guesses? Journalists, book writers, people running courses on the back of having done an RTW or where the journey is a means to another end don't count. I doubt if many of the "usual suspects" here are not subsidising their travel by other means. Or maybe you are all funding lavish lifestyles from bike riding and I'm the one left looking forlornly through the railings as you vanish into the distance yet again :confused1:

Back on planet Earth, bag liners are something I've never got on with. I've tried various versions of them over the years but it never seems to work for me. If I use one big bag I can't get the thing back into the box next morning without having to rebuild the contents into the box from scratch. It never just drops back in. If I use a number of smaller bags carrying them into a hotel needs something like a laundry basket to put them all in. It looks like amateur night carrying armfuls of plastic bags into a hotel when everyone else is arriving with holdalls and suitcases. Somewhere there's a "pro" method of doing this but taking a couple of bags of dirty washing past the receptionist isn't it.