On the Road Again!

My brother had a ride out today to my place to give his bike a trip, but also to help me fit these pannier and the rails. First problem was although I had a set of Allen keys to remove the plastic cover on each side the bracket that holds the Suzuki Givi topbox plate was 10mm head bolts.  I had spanners. None would fit. I don't have a socket set. Bizarrely I did find a 10mm 1/4" drive socket! So we had a quick drive to Halfords in Folkestone. For £17 I got a 1/4" drive set with the sockets I needed. Another fly in the ointment was the need to drill out two of the mounting holes to let the spacer fit through. Who has a 16mm drill bit lying about. The largest I have is 10mm! In the end the hole was enlarged (four times) using a sharp pair of scissors.  After that almost plain sailing. Neill's side perfect. My side I had a problem with the front upper bolt. The head was a bit on the soft side. It needs removing and replacing. I couldn't get it...

I picked up the Shad panniers last night from the seller at his hotel in Dover. It saved me a long trip to pick them up from him in Hampshire. Luckily he was here locally to go to the "Lord of Lydden" motorcycle racing at Lydden. He  said they have been used once. To be honest they do look new.   They will need the 3P fitting rails and kit. I will have to get that ordered. There is no great hurry as I am unlikely to go anywhere where I will need any extra carrying capacity over the 58 litre Suzuki monokey topbox. I was worried that they might be too wide or look awful on the bike. I had a look on the US V-Strom Forum and found a post on fitting them to an L8 1000. They look to fit closely to the bike. I didn't want them too wide or look like they had a huge gap between the bike and the mount. These look okay to me. I'll not be able to know for real until they are fitted. I suppose I had better get googling for the best deal on the 3P system. Update 4.12pm ...