BMW bags are ridiculous. They present the ultimate challenge: how to precisely fill every square inch of a shape never intended to be useful but only graceful and stylish. I mean, the GS guys at least have a bag that looks like a box and not an out of kilter rhomboid where any square shape dropped into it leaves wasted space around it. Naturally you bought a bag liner. And
naturally you are screaming at it because once filled you can never really get it into the hard shell BMW side case. I can see you now trying to shut the freakin bag door while some part of the bag liner presses out somewhere and makes shutting the door a nightmare, especially if the bike is on the side stand. What’s the answer? Well, Pilgrim…you already know the
answer. Stop stuffing stuff into the bag liner. Drop in an insert and precisely pack smaller stuff around it, thus totally control- ling the shape and making it easy to drop the liner into the hard shell bag. In fact if you have an R bike the near perfect insert is made by Sterilite and can likely be found at Walmart. Think 13 x 7 5/8 x 4 ½ with a snap shut lid. Two of these will fit into your bag liner. Put those usb cables and such in some ziplock bags or your cleaning cloths or socks or whatever and pack around them. Riders with cosmetics, contact lens solutions, medicines and assorted small stuff can thank me later when they put this container on the bathroom counter in their motel room. Some final and probably obvious obser-
vations: If you DON”T need it or use it, don’t pack it. And, obviously, look for lighter weight versions of all your gear, for instance, micro fiber for blue jeans. Recall that compression is your friend, so those “roll out the air” compression bags are great for shrinking the size of bike covers and some other stuff. And you can make one out of any seal-able bag including those giant ziplock bags. Just nip a hole in the lower corner of the bag. (Little air comes back in once you’ve packed it shut.) Looking forward to seeing you and your sweet load down the road!
www.bohnriderprotection.com March 2017 BMW OWNERS NEWS 95
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116