I've been thinking about saddlebags for my Sportster for quite some time. Even before I purchased the bike I knew I wanted bags, ideally to carry jacket, extra shirts in cold weather, and my notebook for going back and forth to the office. When I rented the Sportster from the local dealer it was equipped with the Harley-Davidson "Sportster Leather Saddlebags". I found the bags to be very flexible, large enough to cram a long armored jacket into, and liked the easy to use clips under the chrome buckles. I was less excited when I found out the bags are almost $600 not including all the bits required to get them attached to the Sportster.
For the last couple of months I've been looking at various options for saddlebags, searching for the right mix of style, capacity, quality and price. I took a look at the bags people were using on the XL Forums, a lot of nice options are out there. I looked at Willie & Max, Saddleman, and LeatherLyke and several others but didn't find what I was looking for, something that maintains the clean crisp look of the XL1200C Custom. I knew I didn't want rivets, conchos, etc.
Then I found the Tour Master Cruiser II Slant saddlebag. I've used Tour Master products in past and have found them to be of good quality and reasonable price. I did a little research on the web and found others using the bags and happy with the results. The Cruiser bags paired with the Harley saddlebag supports seemed like a good, fairly economical option for Sportster luggage. I purchased the bags online from Tonker.com for under $144, a great price with free shipping. I've not received the bags yet, ordered just the other day, and will review when they arrive.
I did go down to San Diego Harley to purchase the saddlebag supports. They were in stock for the the list price of about $100. I did the transaction and got my points. I'd already installed the rear turn signal relocation kit (that's another story) so the supports are the last thing needed in preparing the Sportster for the bags. I'll write about the installation in a future post, let's just say I'm still amazed at how Harley-Davidson provides just enough information to do to the work, with a little head scratching and creativity required to complete the job.
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2 comments:
So tell me more. How did the installation go?
Consider XL Series Sportster saddlebags from Http://DonsCycleWare.com an XL Forum supporting vendor. Good leather saddlebags, brackets that fit your Sportster and willing to help if you have questions.
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