#Shad SH23

[tonyb-blog]

Despite summer having well and truly arrived in the UK, it’s now 96 days since I was last on a bike (see the post here).

Circumstances well beyond my control have seen to that. It had been a pretty slow start to the biking year due to shoulder surgery, and just when the physio and recovery were seeming to be well under way I went and fractured my left knee but at long last the opportunity to get back on a bike is almost here.

Some restricted movement means that the first bike I get on will be the Kawasaki Vulcan (the forward controls make for an easier knee angle).

With that in mind I plan to get away for a few days just as soon as I can – I wrote in my previous post about having to cancel planned European trips and its gong to be the first time for about 16 years of so that I haven’t done a euro’ trip on a bike!

All things being equal and that includes the weather then I’ll probably head for the west coast of Scotland or maybe Wales – I don’t really mind I’ll just be happy to get back on two wheels.

The propsect of getting back on a bike and getting away – did prompt me to get the panniers down from the attic this evening and get them fitted to the bike.

It also reminded me just how quick and easy it is to get the Shad SH23s fitted and what a decent and good value bit of kit they are.

In all, it probably took about 15 minutes to get the bars and panniers fitted – just three bolts either side and the job is done.

As my first trip will be a solo one I didnt bother putting the pillion seat, rack and rear bag on – all I need now is some continued rehab, some good weather and then I’ll be off.

  Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

Shad SH 23s

My lack of bike time and ‘not on two wheels frustration’ also prompted me to take the opportunity of having a bit of a tidy in the garage (two full bags of junk to the tip) and to get a couple of pictures on the wall.

Garage time

Garage time

Garage time

I just need to keep my fingers crossed that summer hasn’t departed the UK by the time I throw a leg across the bike.

    You can catch up on recent posts with any of the links below:

Good service

Road to recovery

Still not out on the bikes

Sorrento/Amalfi Road

Continued progress

Small Steps Forward

Doctors Orders

Sometimes you just want to swear

She’s a beauty

96 days and counting … Despite summer having well and truly arrived in the UK, it's now 96 days since I was last on a bike (

[bandidospitstop]

Presenting Side Boxes SH23 from the reputed Shad. These hard case side boxes are designed to last and carry luggage wherever you ride to. Buy yours today from Bandidos Pitstop. . . . . . This product is only available in-store. If you want to shop these please visit our store or dm us for more information . . Price : 20000/- . . our customer care at 08891020202,07591020202,07651020202 . . . . . . #shad #touringadventure #touring #bmw  #bandidospitstop

[tonyb-blog]

A short while ago I wrote a Blog post about luggage on the Kawasaki Vulcan S (650), you can read about that here

In that post I wrote about the difficulty my wife and I were having in finding luggage that I thought was suitable for the bike, quite a contrast to the OEM luggage on my Z1000 SX which is colour matched to the bike and simply clips on and off.

There are plenty of aftermarket options available, but some of them mean either having soft luggage (which we didn’t want), having luggage that in our opinion looked too big on the bike or alternatively paying the eye watering prices for Kawasaki’s OEM luggage and ending up with something that aside from its price wasn’t actually quite what we wanted (too small and not lockable).

We went with the Shad options (the SH23s) and there are words and pictures about them in the previous post. Since then we spent some more time looking around and finalized our luggage set up with the Saddlemen roll bag that fits on the rack (model R1300XLE).

It ticked the boxes for us: gives is some extra capacity, looks acceptable, matches the bike, is a good quality product and sensibly priced. We bought our via mail order from A. R Harley & Sons and it cost a little under £80.

The roll bag comes with a range of mounting straps, shoulder strap, rain cover and has plenty of ‘D’ ring fastenings – the company web site claims that the universal mounting system means it can be installed onto almost any backrest or luggage rack – and I think they are probably right.

A neat feature of the bag is that it can be expanded at each end giving a further four inches capacity – apparently its about a 21/23 litre capacity roll bag – dimensions are: unexpanded 16″ L x 10″ W x 9.5″ H; expanded 20″ L x 10″ W x 9.5″ H.

Although the bag comes with a number of straps tp secure it to the bike – we decided that we didn’t want to go down that route(or the bungee route), so I made a small attachment to simply fasten the bag to the rack using four wing nuts.

This was a pretty simple and routine job to do, cost next to nothing other than the modest price of a few bolts and nuts – and the wood that I used was some scrap that I had lying around in the shed.

I finished the job off by painting the wood (inside the bag) with acrylic paint and covering the external wood in black gaffer tape.

  Of course the acid test is whether or not it works – and the answer is a simple yes.

We tried it out when we did a couple of hundred miles earlier this week in the Yorkshire Dales and it worked a treat and we reckon as well as being a bit neater than using bungee cords and straps it’s quicker and easier to remove and put on as well. The net result being that we thing we have enough luggage capacity for when we set off for a couple of weeks for the Pico mountains in Spain before heading on down to Portugal.

  luggage on the kawasaki vulcan s (650) A short while ago I wrote a Blog post about luggage on the Kawasaki Vulcan S (650), you can read about that…

[tonyb-blog]

I suppose it’s stating the obvious to say that touring or any sort of long distance travel on a motorbike will involve  a number of compromises.  I know from experience that something has to give. Ive done long distance European touring on all sorts of bikes, that have included: GSX-R 600’s; 750’s, 1000’s as well as on a Fireblade, CB1000R and a Kawasaki Z1000 SX.

All of them have been excellent and I suppose its only the Z1000 SX that is the most ‘obvious’ of those as an out and out sports touring bike with its factory fitted luggage option.

But it’s my opinion that really you can tour and undertake log distance travel on just about any bike … but that’s where the compromise comes in.

It might be comfort, fuel range or maybe a compromise of practicality over performance or even, reliability etc and a whole host of other things – but one that you can never really get away from is the ability and relative ease (or otherwise) to carry luggage.

It’s the last point that has proved interesting with the bike that my wife and I will be using in a few weeks time when we set off to travel in Spain and probably down into Portugal from our home in Manchester (UK)

We’re doing it on Kawasaki’s medium weight ‘cruiser’ the Vulcan S  (650).

I suppose it’s not an obvious choice of bike to undertake a trip on, but having traveled extensively in Europe many times over the years I cant actually see any inherent problems with us doing it on that. It’s reliable, its got enough power, its a very easy bike to ride and it returns a pretty impressive mpg – so why not?

The availability of luggage options has increased dramatically in the last year or so. Once you got over a near choking fit when you look at the price of  Kawasaki OEM luggage  – over £650 for a pair of leather (non locking) panniers and a £185 for the mounting bars, then you realise that actually not only are they incredibly expensive – they probably are not even the best options.

I started looking around on the web and looked at products from Viking, Givi, Kappa, Hepco & Becker and Shad. I’m sure they all have their merits but many of the options seemed to just look wrong on the bike – especially many of them seeming to be oversized and looking way out of proportion.

Eventually we settled on a new product from the Spanish based company Shad – the SH23’s.

Shad actually produce  OEM equipment for  a number of companies, including: BMW; Yamaha; Honda, Derbi and others and I knew from a previous product of theirs that I had owned that the quality was a good match against the price.

The problem I initially had was actually getting hold of them as they were a new product (2017) and it seemed there were some initial distribution problems – certainly to the UK.

I ordered mine from a company based in North Wales called Fast Bike Bits who supply parts and accessories for a wide range of motorcycles. I can say without hesitation they were a good company to deal with, and although there were some problems with supply, they were down to the manufacturer and not Fast Bike Bits – I had several telephone and email conversations with them and they proved to be a really easy and helpful company to deal with.

My order arrived a few weeks ago, but as I was off traveling around Europe on one of my other bikes it was only this week that I actually took them out of the boxes and got around to fitting them.

The product arrived in two separate boxes, one with the actual panniers and the other with the fitting kit. The instructions were easy to follow and the actual fitting was pretty routine.

I had already fitted a Hepco & Becker back rest and rack – so had already done the drilling out of the two plastic covers – and in practice it was simply a matter of removing the bolts, working out which way the support bars went on and then fitting them.

Once the bars are on they are pretty unobtrusive, as you can see in the picture. After fitting the bar on the left hand side of the bike it was a case of the same again on the right hand side of the bike and to be honest that was more or less it.

The panniers both lock with the same key and feel secure when on the bike. They also came with a spare barrel – I’m not really sure why, although I’m guessing that it’s perhaps if you have other luggage (maybe a top box) then you can swap the barrel and only have to carry a single key for the luggage.

But of course – once the panniers are on then it’s back to the compromise issue and with a capacity of 23L each then clearly it’s not massive, but they DO look proportional on the bike, rather than looking like an oversize option that would be better suited to a bigger and/or different style of bike.

To help with the space we have a Givi 15L bag that we plan to secure to the rack – although I may look at other options if I need to. I’ve had a quick ‘test packing’ in one of the panniers and I reckon I can get enough of my own stuff in there (along with a tube of wash and go, so that after the first week of travel I can wash things through).

My wife has yet to have a go at looking at how much of what she wants to take she can get in – but as I have said a couple of times, motorcycle travel generally involves compromises of sorts and I’m pretty sure we will manage … even if it means compromising some of ‘my space” so she can carry a little bit more of her stuff!

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

Shad SH23

    luggage on the Vulcan S (650) I suppose it's stating the obvious to say that touring or any sort of long distance travel on a motorbike will involve  a number of compromises. 

[tonyb-blog]

I’ve just fitted some luggage on the BMW F800 R that I have recently bought, and its probably fair to say that there isn’t much luggage that is ever going to make a bike look much better – motorcycle luggage tends to be more about function over form than form over function.

Of course there are some exceptions where some bikes look better with luggage than others do, especially when it’s the OEM luggage specifically designed for the bike.

The only bike I have had, with something close to integrated luggage was a fabulous Candy Lime Green Z1000 SX with easy clip on and off panniers and when the panniers were off the bike the retaining brackets didn’t look like the remains of some failed scaffolding project.

But as with so many things in life practical requirements often mean a compromise is required and sometimes with bike luggage it’s a question of the least worst option that will get the job done.

So with the F800R it was a case of looking for something that had: reasonable carrying capacity; was a reasonable cost; could offer ‘backrest’ support/security for my wife and that could be easily removed when not needed and looked OK.

As much as I like my BMW motorbikes, the price of some of the after-market parts can be eye watering and leave you wondering about how the price was arrived at, and with the best part of £400 being required to buy a 28L case I’m not that loyal to the brand that I’ll drag the money from my wallet through my nasal pasages. .

After a good look round at products from the likes of Givi, Shad, Oxford, Hepco & Becker I opted for the Shad SH40 with white cover and fitting kit and all for less than half the price of BMW OEM case. As an aside I ordered direct from Shad UK- I could have saved a few pounds by ordering elsewhere but the Shad web site was a breeze to navigate, responses from  customer services when I had a couple of questions were good and delivery was ‘next day’ (it’s probably worth pointing out that I already had the OEM rack so didn’t need to purchase that or an alternative).

Additionally I have bought Shad products before: a few years ago an SH37 top case and then in more recent years  SH23 paniers and 3P fitting kit and have on each occasion have found the products to be well made, at a good price point and all in all a good buy.

I’m going to write a separate post about various luggage options I have used over the years … which run to quite a few options on quite a few bikes, but for now there are some pictures at end of this blog  of bits and pieces of the SH40 and then with it mounted on the bike.

I think I could have fitted it without the separate (two piece) metal mounting plates that go underneath the OEM rack and secure to the black moulded plastic carrier, there are a range of fitting bits and pieces in the box and if I used longer bolts then I think the small supplied ‘clamps’ would have done – but in my opinion it’s worth getting the fitting plates for a better finish, but if you wnat to save a few punds you could probably do that.

In my case I have positioned the black plastic ‘box carrier’ about 5mm forward of where it really ought to have been for its neatest finish, but this was a deliberate choice so that I can use and secure a small 15L Givi Cargo bag for when I’m pretty much just carrying camera stuff or perhaps a change of clothes for an overnight stay.

I would have considered re-using the SH23 panniers that I have, but it seems that the smallest Shad panniers that can be fitted to the F800 are the SH36’s which I dont like as I think they are too big, although I think they are probably prefaarable to the OEM ‘clam’ type of panniers for the bike – but as with so many things in life it really is a case of horses for courses and so what ever suits you and your bike is always the best solution for you.  The clue to the capacity of the SH40 is in the name …it’s a 40L case and in my experience that’s plenty big enough for a couple of weeks touring Europe on your own and given that this years european trip was shelved due to the Corona pandemic then I dont really need to think abut this until next summer.

There are pictures of the Shad SH40 at the bottomof this post clicking on any one of them should open a scrollable gallery.

In the next day or so I’ll post up some details of the Givi Tanklock fitting kit as well. If you want to check out other recent posts, see the following links:

Different Day/Different Bike

Out & about on the F800

First ride on the F800

New Bike Day;

Worth a stop;

On the Road;

Cumbria and the Dales;

Or check out the Lockdown Lookback – The Motorbike Years series

Shad SH40 Backrest

Shad SH40 Cover

Shad Sh40

Shad Sh40

Mounting plate

Mounting plate

Mounting plate

Mounting plate

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

Shad SH40

  luggage on the BMW F800R I've just fitted some luggage on the BMW F800 R that I have recently bought, and its probably fair to say that there isn’t much luggage that is ever going to make a bike look much better - motorcycle luggage tends to be more about function over form than form over function.

[tonyb-blog]

If you want the answer without having to read any further then the answer is yes. If you want to know a bit more and why the answer is yes – then read on for my view on how the bike shaped up on a 2,500 mile trip to Spain and Portugal in September (2017).

Some background and context: I’m not writing on the suitability of the bike for touring from any lack of experience or with nothing else to compare it to. By way of providing some context I’ve toured Europe on a variety of bikes: K3 and K5 Suzuki GSX-R 600s; K7 Suzuki GSX-R 750; K8 Suzuki GSX-R 1000; RR9 Honda Fireblade; 2011 Honda CB1000R; 2014  Kawasaki Z1000 SX – and I reckon I’ve done maybe the best part of 50,000 miles on European trips.

Each of those bikes did at least two trips and some more than that and I think I probably did around 12,000 miles on road trips on the Z1000 and over the years I’ve used a variety of luggage options that have included various Kriega tail bags, backpacks, Givi Tank Bags and of course the OEM hard luggage option on the Z1000.

Now I know many motorcycle manufactures these days tend to make agreements with dealers to sell only their marque but just allow yourself for a moment to imagine a dealers that retails the full range of machines from say Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, BMW, Triumph, Ducati etc etc etc and you were to walk in and ask them to recommend the most suitable machine for two of you to take off on a European trip.

Then if you tell them  the trip is going to take in several thousand miles, will include mountains, back roads, superbly surfaced roads with wide and fast sweeping bends … to be honest I can’t really imagine a single dealer that would recommend the Kawasaki Vulcan S 650 as the pick of the bunch for touring on and that’s before you mention that it’s got to be capable of carrying a reasonable amount of luggage for two of you!

On our recent trip our route took us down the UK motorway network to Plymouth, then from Santander in Spain we spent three days in and around the Picos mountains before heading into Asturias, Galicia, down into Portugal. After that we headed across Spain down to the mountains of Siera de Gredos, then towards Segovia before returning to Santander.

Finally after crossing back to Portsmouth in the UK we completed the final 240 mile leg of the trip on the UK motorways.  All in all a total of 2,500 miles with a pretty varied mix of roads – certainly enough to provide an informed view on the bike.

Wind blast: Wind blast on any naked bike is always going to be an issue for some people. I’ve had a few naked bikes in my time and to be honest have never really found it a problem.

Obviously you’re more exposed to wind and rain on the Vulcan than behind the three way adjustable screen of something like a Z1000 SX, but I cant say that I ever got neck ache on the trip or was particularly conscious of wind buffeting.  Realistically some of that has got to do with physique – at 5′ 7″ and around 148 pounds then clearly I’m not a big guy, maybe if I was taller and bigger it would cause more problems – that and me keeping cruising speeds on the UK motorways to around the 75/80mph mark caused few issues.

Luggage: Despite the fact that the bike isn’t an obvious choice as a touring bike I don’t think I had quite anticipated how long it would take me to find some luggage that was suitable for the trip and that (in my opinion) ‘looked right’ on the bike.

There’s certainly plenty of options out there, we didn’t want soft luggage and we didn’t want something that was so big that it just looked odd. In the end we settled for the pannier and mounting set up from Shad and purchased the SH23 panniers.

I wrote a separate Blog post on those here if its something you want to check back and read. We also bought a Saddlemen roll bag that fits on the rack (model R1300XLE), and there’s pictures and a write up here about fitting that particular piece of luggage. So in total we had about 66 litres or so of space for the two of us, which actually was plenty.

One last item was the Givi Tank Lock bag – this was a piece of kit that I already had and had purchased it originally for use on my Z1000 SX. It had seen service on about three European trips plus numerous trips in the UK – its a pretty neat item and secures to the bike with a simple click fastening on a adapter plate that is fastened to the petrol tank surround.

The bag itself isn’t bike specific although the tank lock ring itself wont fit all bikes – in this case it was straight swap from one Kawasaki to another and its a great piece of gear for holding bits and pieces: cameras, sun glasses, loose change and so on. The pictures below show the luggage in use.

Overall comfort and handling: I’ve already mentioned that I check in at 5′ 7″ and about 148 pounds and my wife is 5′ 6″ and about 126 pounds – so neither of us are tall or heavy –  it’s a combination that seemed to work well on the bike.  We did modify the passenger seat shortly after getting the bike – see this Blog post for information on that and round about the same time we fitted a backrest and rack from Hepko & Becker – info here.

The final thing that made a significant difference to comfort and overall ride was adjusting the rear suspension. We moved it from the factory position to the number six setting (of seven).  I cant overstate what a huge difference this made in normal day to riding. Oddly enough other than one particular issue  it seemed that for the most part the bike even handled a little better with the luggage on and fully loaded – and that wasn’t something that I had expected.

There were no handling issues on the tight mountain roads, nor the long (at times very long) sweeping bends – and although we clearly were not taking corners and bends at the speeds I might have done on other bikes, we were not hanging about either – there are some ground clearance issues and I’ll come to that shortly.

The one issue that was impacted by the combination of riding two up and with luggage was the introduction of a slight steering wobble at low speeds (say between about 10 – 20mph). This was only slight and in fact was only noticeable with both hands off the bars, with hands on the bars it just didn’t happen under any other situation. So at the same time as not wanting to overplay this issue it does need mentioning as it would probably (in my opinion) be a potential limiting factor to the suitability of the bike for two up touring, If you’re a rider with a pillion and either of you are on the heavier side you would want to be aware of this and check it out. I’m 100% certain its a luggage/weight issue. But to be clear In our case it wasn’t a problem.

In fact and in terms of handling the bike was a complete revelation, it was better than good, the only limiting factor was the ground clearance of the bike, but there again if you buy and ride a bike like this then you know that and ride accordingly. In practice touching the foot pegs down is all too easy, and if you’re being lazy with the position of your feet, contact between the heel of your boot and the tarmac can be pretty frequent (and if I’m honest quite good fun as well). There seemed to be zero impact in terms of speed and handling being two up and with luggage – the bike is an absolute breeze to ride and a lot of fun.

Mileage/range: Prior to the trip we had seen the bike returning a pretty constant 65mpg – which makes for an impressive tank range. Not surprisingly fuel consumption dropped during the trip, doubtless impacted by the long drag to and from the south coast on the motorway network but it still returned just over 53mpg over the 2,500 miles – which is better than any bike I have ever toured on. Although the overall miles per gallon dropped then without doubt this was more than compensated by an increase in smiles per gallon.

Reliability: I didn’t expect any reliability issue and didn’t experience any – we lost a single allen bolt from the plastic panel on the left hand side of the bike, which was soon replaced when we returned home.

Tyre wear: An area that was impacted by riding two up and with luggage was rear tyre wear. Prior to the trip, the OEM tyres had done around 1,800 miles – we had to replace the rear tyre whilst away due to excessive wear, most noticeably on the left hand side, as you can see in the pictures below.

I cant imagine that we would have experienced this type of wear had we done similar mileage without luggage in the UK. Of course the constantly inviting curves on the Spanish and Portuguese roads played a part as well!

Summary: Ive said so many times in the past that you can tour on any bike – ultimately some of the choice comes down to what sort of compromises you want to make. Bottom line on this trip is that whilst the Kawasaki Vulcan S isn’t an obvious tourer, nor is it ever going to be the best – it is actually pretty good, has plenty of power for two up touring, is a breeze to ride and handled with some aplomb pretty much everything thrown its way. I suppose the final ‘test’ question is would you do a european tour on it again … the answer is a resounding yes and probably next year actually!

    If you haven’t read the blog posts or seen the pictures from the trip you can read see them at the following links: PART 1; PART 2; PART 3 and PART 4.

  can you really tour on a kawasaki vulcan 650 s …? If you want the answer without having to read any further then the answer is yes…