Hard Luggage for $110

EDIT: Since I first put this page together I have modified the system a tiny bit. I used slip pipe patches over the two primary lengths (per side) of tubing. The result is a much stronger system that also looks a lot better as the patches largely hide the nature of the system by blending into the pipe fittings. Still, I am going to keep the photos of the first cut as they were taken before I painted everything and as a result the design is easier to see.

Once upon a time I rode a CB250 as a daily commuter. That bike had GIVI hard luggage and I loved it. Recently, I purchased a CB750 as a toy but I instantly missed the hard luggage. As I said though, my current bike is a toy and as such I can not justify spending $400 or so to put hard luggage on it. But where there is a will and a little imagination there is a way! I put together my own hard luggage system for my bike for about $110. It's not done yet as there are some minor tweaks I want to perform (paint!), but it's close enough that you can follow in my footsteps if you are so inclined.

The system is pretty simple....

First I bought a "universal" removable case from JC Whitney (see photo). I didn't expect too much given the cost compared to GIVI or other name brand luggage, but when it arrived I was very pleased. Despite the low cost, the quality of the box is good. It doesn't have some of the little niceties of the GIVI luggage, but I'm not complaining in any way shape or form!

But how to attach it to the bike? I looked at commercial luggage racks and didn't see any that weren't overpriced and were likely to work on my bike. So off to Home Depot I went, looking for inspiration... I found it in the plumbing aisle! 1/2" heavy weight copper tubing looked ideal to work with. It was cheap, reasonably strong, fittings are plentiful, and the tubing itself is easy to cleanly cut to precise lengths.

I turned design details over in my head for about 2 weeks, and then I built this...

...Yeah, it's a bit ugly due to the copper color, but something tells me a little paint will fix this. But functionally? It's great! I took the bike for about a 120 mile ride today. In the back I had a large first aid kit, tool kit, and a 1/2 gallon jug of water. I'd feared that such a load out on a cantilevered arm would vibrate badly, but I never saw or felt any indication that this was indeed the case. It worked GREAT!

All that said, I'll show you a few more pictures to give better details as to how I did it.

Here we have a close up of how the rack is mounted to the bike. On the left is a pipe clamp I found in the electrical department. It's supposed to ground electrical conduit, I think. From there, I've got an adapter from pipe thread to copper tubing. The other mounting point is obviously nothing more exotic than hose clamps with a spacer. The spacer is a small piece of PVC square stock that I made into a double sided V-block with a dremel tool. Oh, and yeah, I had to take off the helmet lock to make room for the pipe.

Looking beneath the box we see nothing special; just a rudimentry rack with the clamps supplied with the box used to clamp the box to said rack.

Towards the bottom of this picture (box removed, obviously), you can see the use of 90 degree elbows to get the uprights outboard of the motorcycle fairing as well as account for the fact that the mount bars aren't parallel to the ground.

EDIT: Having painted the final system, I've got some new pics of it....


Notice that the slip patches really help smooth the lines going into the tubing fittings. This is especially visible on the upright in this photo.


I also trimmed some excess metal from the box mount clamps; it makes it look a lot better from angles that do not include "on my back trying to take a pic."

So how much did I spend on all this? Gee, to be perfectly honest, I've not totaled it up yet. Here we go (numbers are approximate)....

TOTAL PRICE: $113.

I'm thrilled with the results; especially given what GIVI wants for a similar system!