More Preparation

Anyone who's ever ridden a motorcycle in the rain or on a sticky hot day can appreciate how nice it is to have airflow under you. Well, rather than invest in custom woven beaded seat cover I chose to go the Walmart route and "customize" one of their $8.88 seatcovers. I simply used hot glue to seal off a row of beads where the "tail" that normally goes under the headrest of a car seat meets the "fat" part of the cover that goes on the backrest. I turned the whole thing around and mounted it to my backrest "upside down" so the triangular part that's normally on top now fits the shape of the motorcycle seat. See the value of looking at things upside down?

I also put a piece of diamond plate traction material (normally used on scaffolding) on the luggage rack to prevent my gear from sliding off... you see, I decided that the best material to make my rack from is High Density PolyEthylene, which is similar to what milk jugs are made of. Very strong stuff, can be loaded and overloaded without fear of fracture and will cushion my gear somewhat from road vibration. The problem I had is it's very slippery - anything I set on the rack would immediately slide off. Now the problem is solved and I have an additional 3/16" of soft material to cushion my luggage.

This is also a good view of the back of the MotorMates butt-bumper riser I added for this trip - which converts the standard Burgman butt-bumper into a backrest. It also makes a great place to strap additional luggage on the seat - it's actually possible to lift the seat and access the trunk space without unpacking what's sitting on the seat.

We leave in less than one month!