Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Accessories EZ Brackets Lite..

EZ Brackets - they are great products, strong like bull, but heavy. Triumphs are no locomotives, and weight is important to their touring performance. I use the largest, lightest expandable bags I could find, FirstGear, but with the EZ's attached they weigh 7 lbs apiece, empty. On a recent trip to Mystic Seaport, my America, two up, topped out at almost 500#, large tailbag included. The Progressive HD 418's held up nicely, but why not lighten where we can? Over this winter I'm planning to drill a pattern of lightening holes in non-structural parts of the brackets. Anyone tried this? BTW, 48.6 MPG over 340 miles of mountain freeways. Viva EFI / TuneBoy.

On my bike the most effective way to reduce weight is to lose weight... if ya know what I mean!!

I'll have to dig my pictures out of us when we went to Mystic. we carried all our camping supplies on our bikes and clothes for a week. We even had double sleeping bag with 2 extra bags for padding, air mattress and pump and a 4 room tent.I think I have the shots of our bikes loaded when we got there and when we left with the stuff we bought there added to the load. Both bikes ran the EZ brackets too. Bikes performed flawlessly and had plenty of power for the long highway from NE PA to the camp ground near Mystic. Went to Colonial Williamsburg and VA beach last year and maybe VA beach again this year. All on the bikes no trailers or anything.

Roger that. We are leaving for NC, near Boone, on this Thursday for a week. Next is Kutztown and then Gettysburg. Bike looks like Beverly Hillbillies, but what a blast.
M/M - I ALWAYS order diet Coke with my cheesecake pizza. Can't seem to lose an ounce.

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M/M - I ALWAYS order diet Coke with my cheesecake pizza. Can't seem to lose an ounce.

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Huh... I usually split my pizza with whoever's around and I can't loose anything either. Starting to sound like the hole drilling idea is the only way to lighten up the load all right!

If you are going to be in Kutztown should make a run to Boyertown and see the Boyertown Museum of Historic vehicles. It is a donation to get in and some interesting stuff in there. They have a couple cars that they have 2 of and left one partly restored so you can see it's construction and what goes into a restoration. Also have a couple electric trucks for the teens and 20s. Amazingly they were built to haul a lot of weight. (20 tons I think)

We did Gettysburg, took a week to see it all and it's worth getting the CD. There are 4 things they don't tell you about or take you to see on the tour. If you follow the tour at the first stop light before the eternal light make a left instead of continuing to the light and across from the ranger place by the statue with the horse is the cannon that fired the first shot at Gettysburg. It has a plaque on it.
Then make that left at the station, that takes you where the only civilian to fight at Gettysburg fought as well as where the Iron Brigade fought. That loops back to the road you were on when you came to the stop light by where the general was shot. just make another left and you are back on the tour.
Then after the Eternal light you cross a road again and I think pass an overlook tower. (all those towers were built in the 1800s) On the back of one of the monuments on the right, again that they don't tell you about, is the statue of a dog. Her name was Sally and she went to war with her owner and got separated in the battle. Sally helped nurse the wounds of the soldiers until later at another place she was reunited with her owner.
I think I had something else in mind to tell you about it too but I forget now. LOL

We bought a personal CD player that had a really good anti-skip feature and listened to it on the bike, we stopped and looked at everything and hiked all the trails to see the earth works and all.

Well, Ian, since we are off topic, we did make the run to the Boyertown museum after Kutztown, and both were outstanding. No bike tho, my friend hurt her back so we took the Envoy. NC got postponed too, so shifting plans. Thanks for the tips on Gettysburg - will get there and see more of PA too.

Glad you enjoyed it and happy to have helped. Enjoy Gettysburg it's great. I hope they still have the electric map, they are going to get rid of it last I heard. It's too bad since that gives you a great over view of what happened before you tour.

i got to thinkin about this and was wondering, would it be possible to cut both sides of the flat piece that the bags rest against with a half circle )( kinda like that??? i think that would remove some weight?? and still be strong enough??

As long as they're not big enough to allow the bags to bulge into the wheel, I don't see why not Newt

I think round hole in the middle might be better as long as you don't remove too much material and weaken them.