By Joe Gresh
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because it gets the word count up: when you leave town in New Mexico you are more out-of-town than other places. Traffic here is light, cell phone coverage is spotty, gas stations are fewer and far between-er. If you break down 10 miles from home, you might as well be 100 miles from home. It could be a few hours before a car comes along and are there any ax murderers out there?
Even though it annoys my internet buddy, Hacksaw, or maybe because it annoys him, I like to have a few tools, a patch kit, a rain suit, a tire inflator, some water and a few snacks. I even carry a tiny emergency tent and bivouac in case I need to spend the night doing a bit of unplanned camping.
The Buell has a small compartment in the tail section that will hold a few items, but that’s about it. Normally a tank bag holds most of my on-the-road junk and I may rig one on the Buell. I’d hate to mess up the cool paint job (which is what sold me on the Buell in the first place).
A rear rack is another option, I looked around the World Wide Web and didn’t see much for an S2. I didn’t feel like making one either. Which left saddle bags.
Buell made a touring version of the S2 called the S2T; that bike had nice looking bags that blended into the subsonic styling of the Thunderbolt. I didn’t see any of those for sale. I’m guessing people keep them if they have a set. After I started this project, I found a set for $1000, one-third the cost of the entire Buell.
My favorite store, Harbor Freight, had a sale on pelican-style plastic cases. Branded Apache, they are fairly sturdy, weather tight boxes that even have a pressure relief valve for those high altitude runs. Normally these cases are used for cameras, test equipment or anything that needs protection from the bumps and bruises of life in these United States. The HF cases look like most of the bags attached to popular Adventure Barges except a bit smaller. I bought two of the 3800 series for $50 total. Attaching them to the Buell was a challenge. Being an underslung monoshock frame there’s not a lot of bolts on the back section to attach things to. One obvious spot is the passenger peg. It’s a big, strong bolt that you could lift the bike from. The first step was to make a bit of plastic (brand name: Starboard) to connect the bag to the footpeg. This gave me a starting point to work out the rest of the mounting system.
To keep the back part of the saddle out of the rear tire I made a U-shaped bracket that attaches under the seat with rubber covered Adel clamps. The right-hand side is tight due to the Buell’s wide belt drive pulley. After a few tries, I had an ugly brace welded up.
For a mid-mount I bent a piece of aluminum to fit around the rear subframe tube. I probably didn’t need this, but more support is always more support.
Anything mounted solidly to a Sportster-engined motorcycle usually has a short lifespan. Because of this, the bag-to-rear-bracket connections are those rubber isolator type deals (four on each side for a total of eight). If these isolators don’t survive, it will be easy to replace them with progressively larger isolators until the entire bag is all isolator, leaving little room for storage.
The HF bags have two snap-type latches that seem to hold ok but there are also two holes for a padlock or carabiner to ensure they don’t pop open. I’m going to add a small padlock for extra security. Not for theft, but instead for unplanned bag opening.
I seem to do a lot of test rides on the Buell. I’ve put 1500 miles of testing on the bike, and the bagger test ride took me on a 280-mile mountain loop out to Roswell then back on Highway 70 through Ruidoso and tacos at Los Agaves-east (the other Los Agaves is in Artesia). After eating delicious tacos, I noticed oil on the right saddle bag. It wasn’t coming from the tacos. In fact, there was oil all over the place.
I checked the rear cylinder, the source of a previous leak, but it was nice and dry. The Buell had been getting kind of bouncy, and the rear shock was dripping oil. By the time I got home there was no rebound damping at all. The Buell was wallowing like an overloaded Chevy station wagon complete with sticky brats in the way-back.
I need to do a little work on the shock absorber (two steps back), but the bags turned out well. (One step forward) at speed I reached back to touch them, and they were mostly vibration-free. The rear bracket is not my finest hour and if these bags hold up, I may take a stab at a better-looking rear bracket.
On the lonely western roads between Mayhill and Roswell it was comforting to have a few tools and water in case of breakdown. I like a more practical motorcycle, and the Bagger Buell is practical. I may add a refrigerator and a microwave to make my rides even more practical.
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