My Luggage Solution

I bought a Wolfman Luggage Mini Beta on clearance a couple of weeks ago on clearance for 100 bucks. I know that some have mounted it with no rack and were happy with it. My problem is that I'm so tall I sit way back on the seat and have to push the bag way back and it ends up behind the factory exhaust heat shield and is directly exposed to the heat. I decided to tinker and see if I could come up with a homemade rack/heatshield.

Hmmm. I have a couple of old street signs in the garage...







I was just practicing and seeing if it was possible, but I liked it enough to just go with it. I then sprayed it with some Bondo spray can bed liner stuff.







Here you can see how far back the bag goes and why I wanted the heat shield. I will add some footman loops on the rack later to make it useful for carrying other stuff or mounting an everyday tail bag.




I also had some Walmart ATV saddlebags that I bought for 18 bucks. I drilled through the panniers and the plastic fairings to run a zip tie through and keep them mounted forward and up out of the way of my knees. They work great and I keep these on my bike all of the time. They hold a set of tubes, all of my tools, and plenty of room for wallet, cell phone, snacks, etc.






Zip tied the handles together on the top:



Ready to go camping!

Very creative!!!! If you make another one.. I might be interested in buying it. The way it covers the pipe can save a ton of gear from burning up. nicely done!

Do you have a rack on your bike already? I was thinking it would be pretty easy to make a removable heat shield to use when you wanted to use the larger luggage on the rack. You could just bend a piece of aluminum and use a couple bolts to hold it onto current rack.