piedevant
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HOW TO MOUNT A GIVI TOP BOX ON AN HP2
To my way of thinking, no motorcycle can be used as a practical everyday vehicle if you can’t easily carry stuff on it (in other words, without resorting to a rucksack). To put it more positively, I have discovered through years of experience with a great variety of bikes and scooters that a 52 litre Givi Maxia top box can transform the most unlikely bike into a supermarket shopper. Up until now, my HP2 has been firmly lodged in the “deeply impractical” category. No screen, no centre stand, no pillion footrests, minute fuel tank, and tiny rack. And my magnetic tank bag is no use on its plastic tank. Hence I’ve been wanting to find a way of mounting one of my Givi top boxes onto the HP2 since I got it. The simplest solution seemed to be to do exactly what I first did with my Dominator – just bolt a Givi rack on top of the existing one. But first I needed another rack.
Searching on ebay and UKGSer revealed that people will pay silly money for a second hand Givi rack – over £20 just for the bare rack without any supports or attachments – yet some dealers are selling brand new racks complete with fixtures, fittings AND top boxes for silly money: just £21.99 in the case of one dealer in Worthing. Unfortunately it was the wrong rack for my Givi Maxia, otherwise I would have just bought the whole kit and caboodle and flogged the small top box off separately.
Salvation came from one of my local dealers, Blays of Twickenham. They offered me a mixed box of one large Kappa rack with the fittings for both an R850-1100 and an NTV650 for just £25 brand new. (The Spanish-made Kappa range seems to be identical to the Givi one: my Givi Maxia top box clipped straight into the Kappa rack).
I originally thought that some of the steel support parts from the NTV or R1100 kits might come in handy to add a bit more support than that offered by the very lightweight, small and rather flimsy standard HP2 rack. However, when I offered the various bits up to the back of the bike, none of them could easily have been fitted to the lightweight HP2 sub-frame and they actually weighed a ton in themselves, so I decided to go back to plan A and just bolt the light Kappa rack (made of nylon-plastic) directly onto the alloy HP2 unit using the nuts, Allen bolts and washers from the Kappa kit. On the face of it, this looked like a half hour job tops, since it only required the drilling of four holes in the Kappa rack to mate up to the existing slots in the HP2 unit, but in fact it ended up taking half a day!
The first pair of holes I drilled into the top of the rack crosspiece were no good because the heads of the Allen bolts I put through them stood far too high to allow the box to clip in. Doh! So I drilled another pair of holes through the sloping section of the cross-piece; that way the top of the Allen bolt heads were flush with the top of the rack. This would have been perfect if I’d actually managed to drill the holes centrally, rather than lop-sided. I finally got them in the right place on the third attempt, and then drilled two more further back, in line with the first two, on the second cross-piece, to make four in all. I then bolted the Kappa rack to the HP2 rack, adding some larger washers to the Kappa ones to cover the slots, and did the bolts up really tight. Then when I went to bolt the new double-rack back onto the HP2 I realised that there was no way I could do up the rear torx mounting bolts which secure the original rack to the back of the bike because the new rack denied the direct access from above that you need to do up a torx bolt. (Am I the only person who finds torx bolts a bit of a pain in the arse?)
So I drilled two more holes through the Kappa rack to give the required access to turn the torx tool. Then I drilled two more in the right place……
Then I discovered that in tightening the Allen bolts which fixed the two racks together I had actually distorted the flimsy HP2 rack so that it no longer quite lined up with its original mounting holes; I should have bolted it back onto the bike before I did the Kappa bolts up so tight. Doh! Anyway, after a lot of swearing and a bit of unbending, I finally got the original rack back on the HP2 with the Kappa rack firmly attached to it.
I had at least had the foresight to mount the new rack far enough back to allow me to still get the seat on and off…..
With the new rack in place, I just clicked the Givi box in place and “Hey Presto” my bonkers 105bhph dirt bike has been transformed into a practical shopper. I’ve only used it once so far, but the test included a 30 mile ride, speeds up to 90 mph and a top box full of shopping with no ill-effects whatsoever on the handling and everything still firmly in place on arrival.
I actually think the Givi looks pretty good on the HP2 too! Hurrah!
Now all I need is a screen and some pillion footrests. I reckon the Yamaha Serow’s passenger footrests and tubular hangers and could be just the job…..Anyone got a set they don’t want – or similar?
PNB
PS Anyone want some rack supports for an R850/1100 or an NTV 650?!
To my way of thinking, no motorcycle can be used as a practical everyday vehicle if you can’t easily carry stuff on it (in other words, without resorting to a rucksack). To put it more positively, I have discovered through years of experience with a great variety of bikes and scooters that a 52 litre Givi Maxia top box can transform the most unlikely bike into a supermarket shopper. Up until now, my HP2 has been firmly lodged in the “deeply impractical” category. No screen, no centre stand, no pillion footrests, minute fuel tank, and tiny rack. And my magnetic tank bag is no use on its plastic tank. Hence I’ve been wanting to find a way of mounting one of my Givi top boxes onto the HP2 since I got it. The simplest solution seemed to be to do exactly what I first did with my Dominator – just bolt a Givi rack on top of the existing one. But first I needed another rack.
Searching on ebay and UKGSer revealed that people will pay silly money for a second hand Givi rack – over £20 just for the bare rack without any supports or attachments – yet some dealers are selling brand new racks complete with fixtures, fittings AND top boxes for silly money: just £21.99 in the case of one dealer in Worthing. Unfortunately it was the wrong rack for my Givi Maxia, otherwise I would have just bought the whole kit and caboodle and flogged the small top box off separately.
Salvation came from one of my local dealers, Blays of Twickenham. They offered me a mixed box of one large Kappa rack with the fittings for both an R850-1100 and an NTV650 for just £25 brand new. (The Spanish-made Kappa range seems to be identical to the Givi one: my Givi Maxia top box clipped straight into the Kappa rack).
I originally thought that some of the steel support parts from the NTV or R1100 kits might come in handy to add a bit more support than that offered by the very lightweight, small and rather flimsy standard HP2 rack. However, when I offered the various bits up to the back of the bike, none of them could easily have been fitted to the lightweight HP2 sub-frame and they actually weighed a ton in themselves, so I decided to go back to plan A and just bolt the light Kappa rack (made of nylon-plastic) directly onto the alloy HP2 unit using the nuts, Allen bolts and washers from the Kappa kit. On the face of it, this looked like a half hour job tops, since it only required the drilling of four holes in the Kappa rack to mate up to the existing slots in the HP2 unit, but in fact it ended up taking half a day!
The first pair of holes I drilled into the top of the rack crosspiece were no good because the heads of the Allen bolts I put through them stood far too high to allow the box to clip in. Doh! So I drilled another pair of holes through the sloping section of the cross-piece; that way the top of the Allen bolt heads were flush with the top of the rack. This would have been perfect if I’d actually managed to drill the holes centrally, rather than lop-sided. I finally got them in the right place on the third attempt, and then drilled two more further back, in line with the first two, on the second cross-piece, to make four in all. I then bolted the Kappa rack to the HP2 rack, adding some larger washers to the Kappa ones to cover the slots, and did the bolts up really tight. Then when I went to bolt the new double-rack back onto the HP2 I realised that there was no way I could do up the rear torx mounting bolts which secure the original rack to the back of the bike because the new rack denied the direct access from above that you need to do up a torx bolt. (Am I the only person who finds torx bolts a bit of a pain in the arse?)
So I drilled two more holes through the Kappa rack to give the required access to turn the torx tool. Then I drilled two more in the right place……
Then I discovered that in tightening the Allen bolts which fixed the two racks together I had actually distorted the flimsy HP2 rack so that it no longer quite lined up with its original mounting holes; I should have bolted it back onto the bike before I did the Kappa bolts up so tight. Doh! Anyway, after a lot of swearing and a bit of unbending, I finally got the original rack back on the HP2 with the Kappa rack firmly attached to it.
I had at least had the foresight to mount the new rack far enough back to allow me to still get the seat on and off…..
With the new rack in place, I just clicked the Givi box in place and “Hey Presto” my bonkers 105bhph dirt bike has been transformed into a practical shopper. I’ve only used it once so far, but the test included a 30 mile ride, speeds up to 90 mph and a top box full of shopping with no ill-effects whatsoever on the handling and everything still firmly in place on arrival.
I actually think the Givi looks pretty good on the HP2 too! Hurrah!
Now all I need is a screen and some pillion footrests. I reckon the Yamaha Serow’s passenger footrests and tubular hangers and could be just the job…..Anyone got a set they don’t want – or similar?
PNB
PS Anyone want some rack supports for an R850/1100 or an NTV 650?!
