• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

The Best Tank Bag for the TR650 - IMHO

Jughead

Jughead

Husqvarna
AA Class
I've been using tank bags since the seventies, and in my opinion, they are the most useful accessory you can add to your bike. I've had my Strada a little over a month and have been commuting to work on it most every day. I tried fitting up my CycleCase bag, but it really wasn't designed for our style tank. I ordered up Giant Loop "Fandango" but ended up returning it. I settled on the Nelson-Rigg "Adventure Touring Tank Bag".

Let me tell you what boys and girls, this is one nice piece of gear, and it fits our bike like a dream (Main compartment measures (L x W x H): 11 x 9 x 9 or 11 x 9 x 13 (expanded). Holds 14.6 liters/21.09 liters expanded).

It doesn't have the zippered base like the Giant Loop, but I wanted to share what I came up with for a mounting system that makes this VERY EASY to live with.



You know the black cover that surrounds our gas cap? The spacing of the two front screws is perfect for attaching the front straps. I went to the fabric store and bought an eyelet kit with the staking tool (about $4). I used a 30-06 shell casing to cut through the nylon strap.




Punch the hole, crimp the eyelet in place, and you have a custom strap.




Use the existing screws to anchor both straps in place.




The factory rear straps work well enough but require you to loop them around a frame member. I decided to make up some strap mounts that are held in place by one of the chassis bolts. I sewed the strap to the bracket and put some non abrasive material behind the strap where it might contact the paint.



It's a snap (pun intended) to un-hook the front of the bag. The rear straps allow the bag to slide back enough to easily fill the tank.






When cinched-up, the bag is solid as a rock. I've used bags from Harro, Eclipse, and BMW. This bag doesn't give up anything to the high priced competition. Compared to the Fandango, it has an almost identical footprint, twice the volume, and half the cost. What more could a boy want:-)

 
Jughead said:
I've been using tank bags since the seventies, and in my opinion, they are the most useful accessory you can add to your bike. I've had my Strada a little over a month and have been commuting to work on it most every day. I tried fitting up my CycleCase bag, but it really wasn't designed for our style tank. I ordered up Giant Loop "Fandango" but ended up returning it. I settled on the Nelson-Rigg "Adventure Touring Tank Bag".

Let me tell you what boys and girls, this is one nice piece of gear, and it fits our bike like a dream (Main compartment measures (L x W x H): 11 x 9 x 9 or 11 x 9 x 13 (expanded). Holds 14.6 liters/21.09 liters expanded).

It doesn't have the zippered base like the Giant Loop, but I wanted to share what I came up with for a mounting system that makes this VERY EASY to live with.



You know the black cover that surrounds our gas cap? The spacing of the two front screws is perfect for attaching the front straps. I went to the fabric store and bought an eyelet kit with the staking tool (about $4). I used a 30-06 shell casing to cut through the nylon strap.




Punch the hole, crimp the eyelet in place, and you have a custom strap.




Use the existing screws to anchor both straps in place.




The factory rear straps work well enough but require you to loop them around a frame member. I decided to make up some strap mounts that are held in place by one of the chassis bolts. I sewed the strap to the bracket and put some non abrasive material behind the strap where it might contact the paint.



It's a snap (pun intended) to un-hook the front of the bag. The rear straps allow the bag to slide back enough to easily fill the tank.






When cinched-up, the bag is solid as a rock. I've used bags from Harro, Eclipse, and BMW. This bag doesn't give up anything to the high priced competition. Compared to the Fandango, it has an almost identical footprint, twice the volume, and half the cost. What more could a boy want:-)
Click to expand...

Looks good! I went with the Fandango, because I like the swingaway for fueling and waterproofing, but this would have worked for me too. I would highly recommend that you add the clear plastic protection in your strap areas and any other areas the rub the plastic. I didn't do that on my KLR and the plastics got scuffed badly. The black looked especially ratty when scuffed.
 
Having something water proof is key IMHO. Your bag looks nice...I just hate having a bag packed full of stuff then have to scramble off the highway at first rain ....search for the cover...that's likely buried underneath all the stiff I packed. By then I'm usually all wet....and mad as hell.

Nice pics and really nice bag....the cover being in the rear pouch is a good idea....problem is I'd long ago " improved" that and buried it somewhere impossible to find....until everything is properly soaked.
 
Boy, tough crowd. I never owned a bag without a rain cover...

Anyhow, I made some improvements to the rear mounting point. I made a stepped bushing that requires you to use a longer chassis bolt. It holds the eyelet in the strap safely away from the bodywork. The step in the bushing allows the strap to turn freely and lets the bag slide backwards very easily for refueling.





The arrangement certainly works well for me and could be applied to most any strap-on style bag. My two cents worth...
 
My TE610 had body panel fasteners in a perfect place to do the same kind of mount for the rear straps.

P1010620.jpg


The hole was in a recess in the plastic, so I used a little nylon spacer/washer to keep it flush

P1010614.jpg
 
After seeing the Nelson Rigg bag, I bought one and went for my first ride using it yesterday. The interior of the bag is plain Jane -- no pockets, loops or anything for pens, registration, etc. It does, however, fit the bike very well, as has been said. The expansion panel is large enough to be very useful if you pick up a few items from a store, or remove a jacket liner.

I like the attachment methods used by Jughead, with the bushing at the rear and using the screws at the front. For the time being, I'm just using the stock system, and it works well.
 
Love the weatherproof and option for map only, but that design on the Aerostitch looks tough to adapt to the TR. Have a similar design bag from other bike. Very poor fit & not really in the realm of worth modifying. Just my 2c.
 
Nice. Looks like it puts it up a bit high, but I like concept. Being a short bugger, I'd wanna see how it affect visibility of GPS, phone, etc. Looks like Oxford?
 
Trapperj said:
Having something water proof is key IMHO. Your bag looks nice...I just hate having a bag packed full of stuff then have to scramble off the highway at first rain ....search for the cover...that's likely buried underneath all the stiff I packed. By then I'm usually all wet....and mad as hell.

Nice pics and really nice bag....the cover being in the rear pouch is a good idea....problem is I'd long ago " improved" that and buried it somewhere impossible to find....until everything is properly soaked.
Click to expand...

I have a Wolfman Explorer lite tank bag that I've been using on a few bikes, the Terra being the latest.



I made a couple of anchor points off the radiator mounts for the front attachment.


I got caught in rain yesterday and while the Wolfman bag has a "fitted" rain cover I've just about lost my patience with it. I think my solution is going to be to use a dry bag inside the tank bag for the stuff I don't want to get wet and F the "fitted" tank cover that doesn't like to stay attached etc.

I would REALLY like a PROPERLY waterproof tankbag, made from waterproof materials like the super nice WP duffle bags. I know that material is quite a bit more expensive but I'd pay for it to not have to muck about with rain covers etc.
 
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