With my great Northwest Adventure a few fleeting weeks away, the day has come for a trial pack…loading up my gear on STella to see how things work. I have put a great deal of thought into what gear to bring for this trek and how to manage it. I have set my schedule for 9 days up, 5 days in Vancouver (on business) and 9 days back. I expect to see temperatures that range from 100F to 30F. I plan to spend as much time in National Parks as I can, so lightweight camping gear is key to the plan.
STella has a nice set of hard bags and her previous owner popped for the stock Honda Pan-European top box that is available only in Europe at substantial expense (I am very pleased to have it.) Unfortunately that complement of cases cannot begin to hold camping gear, so after a great deal of study I have selected a set of North Face Base Camp Duffel Bags for the trip. The bags come highly recommended by adventure riders; have a lifetime warranty and removable backpacking straps…as well as a host of super strong loops for tie-downs. The North Face bags are remarkably tough, waterproof and come in several sizes. I selected a Medium and a Small. The objective of today’s project is to see just what they can hold and how they fit onto the bike.
I selected the Medium Duffel for two main reasons. First, it seemed to fit the space available; the passenger seat. The bag diameter matches to seat depth and the bag length overhangs the seat width by only about 1.5” on each side. At that size I figured the bag might serve as a backrest and would not be sticking so far out in the breeze that it would hurt my gas mileage or make the bike unstable in the wind. The second reason was that the bag volume seemed to be a fair match for the total volume of the biggest pieces of camping gear I planned to carry. I expect that getting all that gear into one bag that I can put on my back will give me lots of flexibility when it comes to picking a campsite.
Results of the trial pack were quite good. The Medium Duffel swallowed:
- 20 degree mummy sleeping bag and cotton liner
- 2 man backpacking tent and plastic footprint
- 1.75” self-inflating sleeping pad
- 60 degree fleece sleeping bag
- Butterfly camp chair
- Jetboil™ cooking system & large fuel can
- One-man mess kit
- Collapsible Nalgene Canteen
- Aluminum 1 quart water bottle
- Aluminum coffee cup
- LED Mini Lantern
And it looks like I will have room available for a few other small doo-dads to fill in the odd spaces left; so far so good.
My initial thought for the Small Duffel was that it would hold my coats. The volume of outerwear I am taking is somewhere between daunting and absurd…but given the range of weather conditions I can anticipate as my trip tales me from near sea level in Texas to over 10k feet in mountains and back to sea level again in Vancouver, I am reminded of the often repeated aphorism of outdoor adventurers “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad equipment.” But the more I thought about daily life on the road, the more I realized that the Small Duffle bag was a sub-optimum place for most of my outerwear, most of which would go in and out of service relatively infrequently…and none of which needed to be carried into camp.
The hard cases on the bike are waterproof, lockable and removable. It is relatively easy to detach them and carry them like suitcases. Be that as it may it strikes me that the fact they are lockable and not back-packable makes them good candidates for the items that get infrequent use and/or are unlikely to be carried into a campsite or hotel room. My clothes and personal care items, on the other hand, were much more likely to be needed every day, or more importantly, every night.
The Small Duffel swallowed:
- One pair of Kevlar jeans
- 6 pairs of boot socks & 6 pairs of polypropylene liners
- 6 pairs of underwear
- 2 pair of hi-tech long johns with matching long sleeve undershirts
- 3 shirts and 6 t-shirts
- 1 Dopp kit
- 1 hi-tech backpacking bath towel
- 1 netbook computer
And there was room to spare for a little more stuff.
So, with the bags loaded it was time to try them on the bike. I grabbed my usual nylon straps and got the Medium bag tied down and then tied down the Small bag. The result was ugly but fairly secure so I went to run some errands just to see how it worked.
After ugly, the next issue I noticed was that the Medium bag was too far forward and was pushing me too far forward on the seat. The tie down took three straps…one for each end and another to go around the back of the bike so the load could not come any farther forward. The Small Duffel also tended to shift forward.
After considering and throwing out several ideas related to trying to use the passenger hand grips and/or passenger foot pegs for tie down points it finally occurred to me to remove the passenger seat to see what kind of solid structure might present itself. Fortunately the ST offers a steel tube framework under the seat that gave me a perfect spot for anchoring two straps. The straps are the 12’ x 1” variety and came with a friction buckle. With the passenger seat removed I was able to simply loop the straps around the rear section of the frame, just below the passenger seat, pass the straps straight up and reinstall the seat so that both ends of the each strap emerged at the left and right rear corners of the passenger seat. I paid out enough strap so that when the Medium Duffel was placed on the seat the buckle ends of the straps passed under the bag. The free ends of the straps passed over the bag so that when the straps were pulled tight the bag was pulled into the corner formed by the seat bottom and the seat back rest (the forward side of the top box). Cinching both straps not only very effectively secured the bag to the bike, they also compressed the bag exactly where it needed to get smaller so that it would no longer be too far forward for comfortable seating. The arrangement was effective and was very tidy; there were no ugly straps in view or out in the breeze to flap or make noise. I tried some yellow straps from Harbor Freight but happened to see some black ones at Walmart. (Believe it or not, I had to make a late night run for some ammo or I would not have ever been in there.) Anyway, the black straps look great.
The Small Duffel was my next objective. As I mentioned earlier, both the Small and Medium Base Camp Duffel Bags from North Face come with a rich compliment of tie-down loops. A trip to the local big-box sporting goods store produced four black nylon straps with quick-disconnect buckles. I installed the four straps to make an “X” to connect the bags; two connecting the front and two in the back. (See the photo.) The arrangement worked beautifully…very secure and very neat. An additional strap to insure that the top bag cannot pitch forward may be desirable, but for now the arrangement seems imminently adequate.
Note that other than the two straps that secure the medium bag to the passenger seat, I have installed a third strap. It goes around the small bag and prevents the bag stack from rotating forward during heavy braking…which I noticed the stack was tending to do during the test ride. Getting smacked in the back by my clothes bag in an emergency situation could not possibly improve the situation. The third strap should solve that problem.
A test ride proved the whole arrangement was working as planned, at least from a handling point of view. The day was very windy and traffic on the nearby freeway included cars, light trucks and semis…in other words, there was LOTS of turbulence and there were often significant and gusty cross-winds. Happily not only did the bike handle very well, handling actually improved. Riding with the top box installed, but without a passenger, results in very noticeable buffeting and a bit of a nervous feel on the road. In fact, if it did not fit my briefcase perfectly for my daily commute, I would not leave it installed on the bike on a day to day basis. However with the duffel bags installed, the air gap between me and the top box was filled and those buffeting wind currents that usually caught the front of the top box simply could not do their mischief. Having the bags installed made for a significantly smoother ride despite the choppy air; again, so far, so good.
Another trial pack will be needed before departure. Outerwear, food and miscellaneous stuff need to go into the three hard-sided luggage boxes. I expect it to go well, but I need to give it a try. Stay tuned.
