Had my SW-Motech setup fitted by Sam at Chainspeed yesterday.
I bought all of this gear, plus the Airflow and a couple of new lids and got a great deal, I think the SW stuff was about £1200, but this was all in with inner bags, and security thingies for quick release racks (i.e. I don't think I could have spent any more with SW!) Although I have not got the black on black reflective stickers yet as only decided to take them after realising I had purchased everything else except them in the catalogue!)
Fitting is really quite simple, certainly compared to putting luggage on my last bike (ZZR) with no bodywork to remove or anything remotely fiddly to do. One of those theraputic jobs where you enjoy spending time with your bike and spanners, and end the day with a full compliment of knuckles.
It still takes a while as the fitting kits need some assembling before bolting them on, mainly due to the modular design (the racks can accept a multitude of pannier systems) and some parts need fine tuning (such as catches) so expect a full morning in your garage if fitting them yourself.
First impressions are that they are of pretty good quality, the boxes look well made, these are the later EVO types and should have addressed the earlier issues of leaking, they also have "Trax" embossed on them which adds to the quaility look. I was also surprised how light they are, certainly lighter than BMW's plastic Vario's.
They have plastic protectors all around on the corners so are easy to move about and turn on end when cleaning without trashing them- the journey home was 3 hours of torrential rain so I was able to test both the water-tightness and ease of cleaning right off.
They even come with their own bags for storing them in, at first I thought "Why?" but now they are stashed on my garage shelf I am thinking what a great idea as they will stay clean and not get scuffed up when I am crashing about near them.
Some thing that I like is you cannot remove the key in the open position, so it is hard to accidentally leave the boxes unlocked or not properly attached...
Which is also very neat, they slide on and off the mouting pins very easily, lining them up and fitting them is far easier than say Vario's. The racks also come off in seconds (4 half turn fasteners) and leave the bike looking very clean with the remaining fittings barely noticeable.
Hard to find anything to complain about, but if being really fussy....
You cannot close the boxes without locking them, although this is handy for the mount system so you could not leave something loose, it does mean you need the key every time you just want to open the top box - something I do quite a bit when out and about.
The inner bags could be better, they are of decent quality and very well priced (about £25 each - half the Givi cost and 1/3rd of what BMW charge for inner bags) and would be perfect except... They have a side pocket that is about an inch wide, but does not fill the entire area so probably wastes a couple of litres of space, it would have been better to of either not had his pocket, or to have made the rest of the bag wider so you could either fill the entire bag with nothing in the pocket, or lose a bit of the "main" area when using the pocket. I definately preferred the inner bags I had for the GS as I think they "lost" far less of the overall capacity - but I have gained about 20% with these so should still be able to carry more crap than ever before.
Some may be a little dissapointed to discover the larger (45L) pannier does not hold a full face lid, although to do so would mean the panniers would be a lot wider - the top box comfortably took my huge Schuberth and I doubt there is a bigger lid anywhere other than NASA.
Oh, they are not easy to keep clean, the black finish looks (and is) difficult to bring back to a nice consistent sheen, and I would guess will be quite easy to chip, but with a Silver bike I really thought the black boxes would look better than a load more silver (which I reckon will be easier to clean and not show chips / scrapes so badly)
On the bike I think they look great, I will post better pictures at some point, took most of these in a hurry between rain showers this morning.
If looking completely straight on from the front it is hard to see the panniers, they are no wider than the rest of the bike, also with the 37L / 45L combo the width is exactly equal distance if measured from centre of tail light to edge of pannier - but of you wanted more capacity two 45's only make it 3cm wider on the Exhaust side.
Just after fitting, here you can clearly see the embossed logo which does not show up so well on other pictures.
Slightly off centre shot, but you can see the panniers do not stick out much
The rails are not too ugly
And come off in 30 seconds leaving virtually no trace
They come with bags for storing the boxes
I bought all of this gear, plus the Airflow and a couple of new lids and got a great deal, I think the SW stuff was about £1200, but this was all in with inner bags, and security thingies for quick release racks (i.e. I don't think I could have spent any more with SW!) Although I have not got the black on black reflective stickers yet as only decided to take them after realising I had purchased everything else except them in the catalogue!)
Fitting is really quite simple, certainly compared to putting luggage on my last bike (ZZR) with no bodywork to remove or anything remotely fiddly to do. One of those theraputic jobs where you enjoy spending time with your bike and spanners, and end the day with a full compliment of knuckles.
It still takes a while as the fitting kits need some assembling before bolting them on, mainly due to the modular design (the racks can accept a multitude of pannier systems) and some parts need fine tuning (such as catches) so expect a full morning in your garage if fitting them yourself.
First impressions are that they are of pretty good quality, the boxes look well made, these are the later EVO types and should have addressed the earlier issues of leaking, they also have "Trax" embossed on them which adds to the quaility look. I was also surprised how light they are, certainly lighter than BMW's plastic Vario's.
They have plastic protectors all around on the corners so are easy to move about and turn on end when cleaning without trashing them- the journey home was 3 hours of torrential rain so I was able to test both the water-tightness and ease of cleaning right off.
They even come with their own bags for storing them in, at first I thought "Why?" but now they are stashed on my garage shelf I am thinking what a great idea as they will stay clean and not get scuffed up when I am crashing about near them.
Some thing that I like is you cannot remove the key in the open position, so it is hard to accidentally leave the boxes unlocked or not properly attached...
Which is also very neat, they slide on and off the mouting pins very easily, lining them up and fitting them is far easier than say Vario's. The racks also come off in seconds (4 half turn fasteners) and leave the bike looking very clean with the remaining fittings barely noticeable.
Hard to find anything to complain about, but if being really fussy....
You cannot close the boxes without locking them, although this is handy for the mount system so you could not leave something loose, it does mean you need the key every time you just want to open the top box - something I do quite a bit when out and about.
The inner bags could be better, they are of decent quality and very well priced (about £25 each - half the Givi cost and 1/3rd of what BMW charge for inner bags) and would be perfect except... They have a side pocket that is about an inch wide, but does not fill the entire area so probably wastes a couple of litres of space, it would have been better to of either not had his pocket, or to have made the rest of the bag wider so you could either fill the entire bag with nothing in the pocket, or lose a bit of the "main" area when using the pocket. I definately preferred the inner bags I had for the GS as I think they "lost" far less of the overall capacity - but I have gained about 20% with these so should still be able to carry more crap than ever before.
Some may be a little dissapointed to discover the larger (45L) pannier does not hold a full face lid, although to do so would mean the panniers would be a lot wider - the top box comfortably took my huge Schuberth and I doubt there is a bigger lid anywhere other than NASA.
Oh, they are not easy to keep clean, the black finish looks (and is) difficult to bring back to a nice consistent sheen, and I would guess will be quite easy to chip, but with a Silver bike I really thought the black boxes would look better than a load more silver (which I reckon will be easier to clean and not show chips / scrapes so badly)
On the bike I think they look great, I will post better pictures at some point, took most of these in a hurry between rain showers this morning.
If looking completely straight on from the front it is hard to see the panniers, they are no wider than the rest of the bike, also with the 37L / 45L combo the width is exactly equal distance if measured from centre of tail light to edge of pannier - but of you wanted more capacity two 45's only make it 3cm wider on the Exhaust side.
Just after fitting, here you can clearly see the embossed logo which does not show up so well on other pictures.
Slightly off centre shot, but you can see the panniers do not stick out much
The rails are not too ugly
And come off in 30 seconds leaving virtually no trace
They come with bags for storing the boxes
