Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Accessories Easy/Ghost bracket alternatives?

Just ordered a set of saddlebags and am now working on how I'll mount them.. I've looked at the easy/ghost brackets and for the life of me can't understand why they are so expensive. Not only that, but from what I've seen, it looks like the locking feature would be pretty easy to bypass.

Short of making a permanent bolt-on attachment or just tying them on, has anyone else come up with an innovative way of attaching these things?

Cheers,
Brad

Nothing innovative, but this works for me....I only put on my saddlebags a few times a year so I use Honda Magna brackets. To attach them to the bike, I reinforced my Willie & Max bags with a small sheet of aluminum riveted to the flimsy cardboard looking stuff that's built in to the bags. I then drilled a couple of holes through the aluminum in each bag and use tie straps to secure them to the bag guards after I've bolted the guards to the fender struts.

For the 4 or 5 times a year I take overnight or longer trips, this system works fine for me. If you use the saddlebags more often, I'd recommend springing for the easy brackets.

The K-Drive bags look great but it's hard for me to see this being a solid enough attachment. What you see below is from the site and I think it shows the bracket that mounts on the bike clicking onto the rear of the bag. The bracket looks about like the magna ones but the attachment to the bag is less solid than what most people do with the magnas. I guess if the back of the bag were very strong it might be ok.

Matt, it's pretty much a done deal. Wound up snatching them up on e-bay.. Brand new 4 piece Iron Horse leather bags (2 saddle bags, sissy bar bag and fork bag) for less than half of what they go for retail. Anyway, I did look at the K-drive bags.. they are sweet (and had better be for that price!). I did however read one review that knocked them for having the lock on the inside, which isn't a problem when empty, but became a problem when the bags were fully loaded, like they would be for a road trip. Perhaps you can report on this once you get yours fitted and you have a chance to test drive them a bit.

Maybe I'm just plain cheap, but I can't see how a simple set of brackets can go for over $100+. I've been thinking of making a set myself, with a slide latch mechanism that can be locked with a small padlock from the outside. I was hoping someone else had ventured into this area and could provide some input as to how they went about it. Apparently, most seem to have gone the easy/ghost bracket route or done something similar to Derek (SalMaglie) has with supports and tiedowns.

Cheers,
Brad

Heya Brad

Yeah the easybrackets're very popular - and they suffer similar issues to any bags that clip onto a bracket: they're only as strong as the backing of the bag. My personal worry with easybrackets is that the bag hangs from two very small points and there's nothing to support it at a lower point so it's got to be moving in & out at the bottom of the bag. That kind of flexing's not going to be good for the sheet metal bracket and two little posts. However noone's complained about them breaking yet so maybe I'm pi$$ing in the wind on this one.

Interestingly I had my original brackets made at an engineers - they did them out of stainless rod and polished them for me. The pair of them cost me AU$120 (about US$100) for labour and materials so I guess Triumph's thought is that if it costs us that much to have made up, we'll pay a little more for the conveniance of getting them off the rack.

One thing to check before you buy a mounting system is that the yoke that goes over the rear fender's removable from the bags. If not you're wasting your time buying easy/ghost brackets and might as well just buy some of those honda magna brackets.

Thanks Matt.. I'm guessing that, since they call them 'detachable yoke slant bag', the yoke is removable Also, from what I've read about various other bags, I'm going to go ahead and reinforce the backs from the get-go.. I have a nice large sheet of stainless out in the shed that will work perfect, and I could also use some to fabricate some sort of bracket as well. Hard part would be finding someone with a metal brake that I can borrow for a couple of minutes.

Cheers,
Brad

Don't forget to reinforce both the inside and outside of the bag, sandwiching the original back. Otherwise you're just providing new and interesting places for the bolts to rip through the backing.

Matt

The main thing with soft bags is keeping them away from the wheel and chain. The Magna braces mentioned by someone else will work for this. For that matter, it isn't all that hard to make something yourself that will do the job. Even a simple T bracket made by welding or bolting 2 pieces of steel strap together will work.
If you very seldom use the bags, an easily removed brace, home made or otherwise will serve you well and save you money.
In a case like mine where the bags are used frequently, but not enough to justify hardmounted fiberglass bags, Easy Brackets are worth their price.
Since the Easy Bracket has a good size heavy metal backing, you really only need to add a reinforcement plate on the inside of the bags to make sure they hold up.
The lock assemblies are pretty hard to get at once the bracket is mounted, so the way to steal the bags would be to open them and remove the bolts. Tack welding the nuts to the bolts will prevent that. The bolts holding the studs to the fender brace are inaccessable with the bags in place, so it would be really hard to steal the bags by undoing them.

Thanks Ed.. I'm probably going to wind up with easy brackets eventually. I'm also thinking that if I forgo the locks, fabricating something like them would be pretty straightforward. A couple of aluminum sleeves and a mating metal plate would suffice I imagine. But I guess the lock also keeps the things from falling off while cruising, so I'd just have to make sure that the mating pieces somehow prevent that from happening. Oh well, I should be getting the bags next week sometime, so I can better guage what would be required once I get my hands on them. It always looks better on paper

Cheers,
Brad

You know, I used to think that there's no way a saddlebag could come off with EasyBrackets, with or without the lock...

I used Easybrackets. Look at how I mounted mine in my gallery

http://www.bonnevilleamerica.com/photopo...=500&page=1

There is a fellow from san diego on e-bay selling easy brackets for 129.95.