Hello Warthog!
Spending money on ally panniers is always better idea. Better to be with in one piece after the crash raher to have fuel ended somewhere middle of nowhere.
You thought the same way i did - Tesch and Caja are the few only options for strong panniers. Though, i'd never carry fuel with any of the panniers, considering it a bit too dangerous if you travel fast indeed (1000+cc enduros). Aside the centre of gravity - your bike already carries too much weight on the back - if you start loading huge amounts of water and fuel on the back then you CERTANLY need to buy Öhlins rear suspension with the strongest spring option or you'll end up somewhere rear original suspension werekked going through some potholes etc. That's why it's great idea to have rather bigger thank balancing the front and taking away the weight from rear - try it, load the bike all the stuff, and accelerate with nearly empty tank - the front end is very keen to rise up very quickly leaving you without steering control. That's why i use that Touratech VP tankbag too with side-bags, to give some additional weight to front, also makes CoG lower for luggage. And to talk about speciefically 1100/1150GSes, then the rear frame mounts on gearbox are keen to brake with huge load on the rear.
Well, what i'm trying to say we all have our speciefic views about the methods how to load the bike, but sure i'd firstly consider having better weight distribution for
safer riding and dynamics. Simple principle - try to make centre gravity the lowest possible (put the most weighty stuff the lowest position, lighter stuff more up etc), close to centre of two wheels (to the engine) as possible and distribute the weight equally as possible between front and back, left and right.
And... Travel light and simple as possible! If you have long-term experience, then in the end you don't need at about half of the things (!) you first though you'll need on the long road!
For solo-travelling two medium side panniers, slight tank bag should be more than enough, maybe small roll of stuff on the back too.
We did 2-up 5 weeks to Iran and amazed most of the motorcycle people how less stuff we got per two-upping. And in the end there was even some stuff we didn't needed...
Less stuff will cause you less problems and less things to be responsible indeed...
Hope this helps.
Happy and safe travels, Margus
Warthog said:
I'm planning a long trip next year and thought about getting a larger tank (I'm on the standard 1150 gs 24l number right now). Having looked at the prices of these tanks, I've decided to leave it as standard, and instead to spend the money on Ally panniers. Two of thge manufacturers (Caja Sahel and Bernd Tesch) can make the panniers with inbuilt reservoirs for fuel or water (eg 10-13l per side) So even if you only use one side for fuel and the other for water, you get an effective tank range of 34-37 litres. This is close to the Touratech quantity, equal to the ADV tank, but you get the added bonus of not having a huge, top heavy tank on your bike, all the time, but can spread the weight of you 50-100% fuel capacity increase around the bike for a better centre of gravity.
That's definitely the way I'm going...and it still works out cheaper than the extortionate touratech item.