1100GS - weight on rear rack

[gazuk]

Just preparing for two up camping. Me and misus on the one bike so I got a Tourag rear rack extender,and loaded it with a HG bag filled with tent, sleeping bags and liners.

I weighed the bag and its 9kg. I seem to recall someone saying the rear rack may break under excess load (I think it was to do with top boxes). My concern is because of the rack extender the weight is far back although when I strap it down I pull the bag as forward as possible.

Anyone had experience of the rear rack breaking and if so under what weight/conditions? (the chairs are resting on the rear of the pillion seat do not cencerned about the weight of them

 

[Stewart H]

That does not seem excessive, why not evict the tent from the bag, you dont want a potentially wet tent in with the bedding anyway, and as its the heaviest, strap it forward as possible then get the bag on top of it, keeping the bulk forward, 9kg is not that much really, have a good trip

Stewart

 

[uncle dick]

At first glance I think you'll be fine. I had about 14/15kg on the back of my slightly modded 1100. As an easy mod, if you look on the side of the seat base - the silver aluminium bit - there are cut-outs where it goes over the pannier bracket. I made some alloy spacers - about 5mm thick IIRC - which enable the pannier bracket to take the load from the seat frame. Any excess loads are then fed to the back of the steel 'bike frame'. It's fairly simple and surprising how much flex is taken out of the equation.

The other option is to buy a Givi mounting plate - they're often on here - which has brackets to directly support the rack.

hth
Dick

 

[shready]

I have a H&B topbox and it took quite a while to crack my carrier

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1898368&postcount=3

I think you will be fine, at least you are aware of the problem

 

[Wrigsby1]

They usually crack due to a weight/bump combination. I usually carry a fair bit of stuff OK but an empty top box with a suspension bottoming high speed bump on an Irish peat tarmac road did it for one of my GS racks.

I had a top box on a KLT that just bolted onto the fibreglass rear unit without probs

 

[gazuk]

Thank you all for the speedy replies.

It sounds like I'm right to be concerned but should be ok if I avoid jumping off speed bumps.

I'm beginning to think a few small bags would have been better than one big one, as it would give me more options on where to strap things. Oh well, trial and error.

 

[Wrigsby1]

Also a quick thing to keep in mind with rear bags as opposed to a top box. Watch what you pack in them as they can be nicked a bit easier! Good luck with your trip.

 

[essjay]

This is what I had a bash at. Not finished yet though.

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240482