Hard luggage or Soft Motorcycle Luggage: Which should you choose?
- Julian
- October 28, 2019
- 9:49 am
- No Comments
So you are going on a big trip on your Bike and you need some carrying capacity to hold all those travel essentials for your trip. But which should you choose – Hard Luggage or Soft Motorcycle Luggage?
Ride Expeditions looks what you should consider before making your decision and then what options you should choose for your trip.
WHAT BIKE?
So this might sound a pretty obvious first step, but it still needs considering. The size of your bike, the strength of the rear subframe and the recommended load weight is important. It’s no good thinking you can load up your adventure ready KTM EXC500 with aluminium panniers and a top box packed to the gunwhales and expect the aluminium subframe to last further than the first ferry.
Similarly, it’s pretty daft to limit yourself to a featherweight Luggage roll and a tail pack if you are taking a GSA1250 on a transcontinental jaunt, when the bike is capable of taking far more to make your trip more comfortable.
Luggage needs to be appropriate to your bike and if it looks overloaded, chances are it is overloaded …
HOW MUCH?
But just because you have a big bike doesn’t mean it has an unlimited capacity. Manufacturers now often quote the ‘maximum payload’ for their machines to give owners an idea of what the bike can safely transport. Now again it might sound obvious but that payload limit includes the rider and passenger. So that means that if you are going two up you have substantially less carrying capacity than a solo rider. So despite the fact that you are trying to pack twice the amount of clothes and possessions, you need to be twice as smart not to overload your bike.
If you’ve any doubt about how much capacity your bike has, go to the manufacturers website and find out. Then you need to know how much load you are intending to subject it to.
You might not be able to weigh everything together unless you happen to own a weigh bridge, but you can tot up the weight of both you and your passenger in your riding kit and add the weight of the loaded luggage. If it’s not within the bike’s limits. then you need to reconsider …
HOW FAR?
So let’s be practical here – there’s no need to deck out your bike with top of the range Hepco and Becker cases if you are just planning long weekends at the coast. Any luggage and additional weight is going to affect the suspension, handling and performance of your bike to a greater or lesser extent, so it’s very much a case of ‘less is more’ for those smaller adventures in less remote locations.
We’ve got a separate blog on what to take on a short trip and the key is paring down what you think you need to what you actually need. There’s a big difference and every kilo affects your bike.
WHERE ?
While you need to bear in mind how far you are going, you also need to consider where you will be riding and on what surface. If you are taking your adventure bike for a road trip around Europe, then firstly you won’t need to take many survival essentials when you are likely to be near civilisation, secondly the smooth tarmac will be kind to your bike and your luggage.
If however you are taking on a round the world trip via the ‘Road of Bones’ then weighing down your bike with packed and massive hard cases can make things very hard work as Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman so aptly demonstrated. In such situations, soft, light luggage has a lot of advantages …
So once you’ve considered the four questions above then let’s look at the pros and cons if hard and Soft Luggage. And to make it easier, we’ll make it a straight winner or looser in each category.
It’s battle time …
Weight
First off it’s a practical consideration, and straight away the soft luggage is going to be the winner as on average soft luggage will weigh less from the get go. Even if it’s a system that requires a mounting frame, the reduced initial weight of cloth, leather or vinyl will generally need less metal to support it than the hard luggage – like the one below on the Tenere 700 from Kreiga.
For hard luggage whether metal or plastic, top box or panniers, you are going to need a substantial mounting frame on your scoot to hold them safe and secure. If you are venturing off-road, the frames may need to be even stronger, and because the frames and luggage is heavier, hard luggage is harder on your bike and will affect your handling more.
HARD LUGGAGE - 0
SOFT LUGGAGE - 1
SECURITY
At some point you are going to have to leave your bike somewhere unattended, and you’d like to hope that all your possessions will still be there when you return . But the reality of adventure travel is that may not be something you can guarantee and if you do get robbed, it will be in the most inconvenient place in the world! Maybe you should consider a guided tour …
So the hard luggage is going to be a much better choice in those dodgy areas, deterring the casual thief that won’t be bothered to bash his way into your Metal Mule Cases. In comparison, even the best soft luggage in the world can be defeated with nothing more complex than a £1 craft knife, and can probably be unstrapped in less than a minute and spirited away. This will seriously crimp your trip …
HARD LUGGAGE - 1
SOFT LUGGAGE - 0
CAPACITY
OK so we’re going to have to be a bit general here as there will always be exceptions to the rule. But if you are looking to carry a lot of stuff on your bike – whatever it is – then a set of big side cases and a top box will usually give you more space than with soft options.
Of course if you go mad with U bags, tail packs, tank bags, fender packs, side bags and rucksacks then you might get close, and for an off road trip it may make sense. But If you’ve got a lot of kit for a road trip on a big bike, go hard or go home
HARD LUGGAGE - 1
SOFT LUGGAGE - 0
COST
Again it’s going to be a bit of a general comment, but if we are counting high cost as a bad thing and low cost as a good thing, then soft luggage is going to have the edge here as it’s easier to build up a selection of soft baggage over time to suit your needs and your bike. With hard luggage you are going to have to commit to the frames and the boxes in one hit and they ain’t cheap.
If you buy a good brand of hard luggage it may be transferrable between bikes and brands with nothing more than different mounting frames, but clearly soft luggage options that just strap to the bike will be far more flexible here – until you frazzle them on the end can …
HARD LUGGAGE - 0
SOFT LUGGAGE - 1
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CONVENIENCE
So here we are looking at convenience of use when you are loading up, and crucially when you are out out on the trails or roads. How easy is it to retrieve a dry pair of socks at the side of the road, how easy is it to unload your essentials when you get to the overnight stop – that sort of thing.
And here its going to be a bit of a win for the hard luggage again, as you can just load them up either inside the house or in the garage if they are not removable and you are good to go, with everything arranged and staying that way. For soft luggage it’s a bit harder to be quite so organised and everything tends to get a bit squashed and muddled up once you’ve finished packing it. And then you have to attach it to the bike and strap everything in place, compared to just clipping and locking into place with a satisfying clunk.
With both options, it’s a good idea to use a liner, so that if the outers get covered in mud or water, your possessions stay dry and clean, and you don’t bring filthy luggage into your overnight accommodation, even if it’s just a tent!
HARD LUGGAGE - 1
SOFT LUGGAGE - 0
ON THE ROAD
Now this is a bit more tricky as it kind of depends on the bike you have and how far you are going. On a small to mid-sized bike on a road trip then because of the effect on performance and handling then you are probably better off with soft luggage options that will fit around you – and your passenger if necessary – and keep the bike agile. That said, then as long as you don’t go mad on the weight and overload your CRF250L with enormous hard cases, then some limited hard luggage can be a great option for road-based travel and adventures.
The flip sign of the coin is that you have a adventure or road bike like the KTM 790 Adventure or Yamaha Tenere 700 with lots of capacity to carry luggage, squashing all your possessions into soft luggage seems a tad unnecessary. But for a weekend away, then it makes more sense to strap on a soft bag than reach for the Givis. And as an added bonus, if you do throw your bike down the road, hard luggage may prevent a lot of damage to far more expensive bodywork and frames
It’s a score draw here
HARd LUGGAGE - 1
SOFT LUGGAGE - 1
OFF THE ROAD
This post first appeared on Cambodia Motorcycle Tours | Ride Cambodia, please read the originial post: here
