fred_jb
Registered user
Some of you may have seen my thread a few months ago where I fitted Shad panniers, which involved fitting a low level exhaust (from an R1200 RT) to my GS. At the time I couldn't get the new Shad SH35 panniers which I wanted, so got a deal on some ex-display older style SH36 ones which I fitted for our summer tour of Spain and Portugal.
I've now bought a set of the new SH35 panniers which I prefer the look of and which are flatter sided, so a bit slimmer, which I confirmed when I checked them out at the NEC show, though they lose a little capacity, being 35 litres v 36 litres. The older ones when fitted ended up a little wider than the bars, but the new ones are 980 mm across when fitted, which is exactly the same width as the bars. This has satisfied my perfectionist tendencies even though I could filter perfectly well with the old ones! I prefer the appearance of the new ones, and I think the aluminium panel suits the bike better and balances out the aluminium panel over the forks at the front, but would be interested to know if you think it is an improvement - one or two people were less than complimentary about the old ones!
This gives me a total storage capacity of 128 litres, 70 for the two panniers and 58 for the adjustable top box when set in its largest position. I was interested to read that the new Honda Goldwing has only 110 litres, compared with 150 for the old model. Apparently this continent crossing bike is mainly used for 2-3 day trips according to Honda's market research, so they decided that 110 litres would be sufficient! So as a tourer I think my bike is far superior - it weighs 135 kg less than the Goldwing, has the same maximum power, 18 litres more luggage capacity, and has self leveling suspension whereas the Goldwing has manually selectable presets for rear preload, like the previous GS.
Fred
New panniers:
Old panniers:
I've now bought a set of the new SH35 panniers which I prefer the look of and which are flatter sided, so a bit slimmer, which I confirmed when I checked them out at the NEC show, though they lose a little capacity, being 35 litres v 36 litres. The older ones when fitted ended up a little wider than the bars, but the new ones are 980 mm across when fitted, which is exactly the same width as the bars. This has satisfied my perfectionist tendencies even though I could filter perfectly well with the old ones! I prefer the appearance of the new ones, and I think the aluminium panel suits the bike better and balances out the aluminium panel over the forks at the front, but would be interested to know if you think it is an improvement - one or two people were less than complimentary about the old ones!
This gives me a total storage capacity of 128 litres, 70 for the two panniers and 58 for the adjustable top box when set in its largest position. I was interested to read that the new Honda Goldwing has only 110 litres, compared with 150 for the old model. Apparently this continent crossing bike is mainly used for 2-3 day trips according to Honda's market research, so they decided that 110 litres would be sufficient! So as a tourer I think my bike is far superior - it weighs 135 kg less than the Goldwing, has the same maximum power, 18 litres more luggage capacity, and has self leveling suspension whereas the Goldwing has manually selectable presets for rear preload, like the previous GS.
Fred
New panniers:
Old panniers:
