What bags did you put on your cruiser?

[Izzy]

I want to put some kind of bags on my Intruder 800. Right now I can't even bring home a bag of donuts without shoving them in my jacket. I'm thinking along the lines of saddle bags. I'd love to hear how you all went about picking out the "right" bags. What have you put on your bike? What size bags? And how have they worked out for you?

TIA.

[DrBob]

Don't get soft-sided ones, as you will then have to buy the brakets that keep them from flopping into the rear wheel, and they flop around and look like crap when they are empty- get rigid ones.
I bought a pair of Willie and Max bags that toss over the rear seat. I cut a small notch in the connector piece to clear the ignition box, and they now fit under the rear seat. I don't use them much though, as I just don't like the looks of saddle bags, and they are not quite big enough for my laptop computer I need for work and grad school. I bought a rigid sissy bar bag that slips over the seat back, and use that a lot more. It will hold enough stuff for my grad school classes or a couple days out of town, plus my computer, and it came with a slick little waterproof cover.

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by DrBob

I bought a rigid sissy bar bag that slips over the seat back, and use that a lot more.

Did you get a luggage rack or does your bag sit on the rear seat?

[DrBob]

The bag sits on the rear seat, and makes a GREAT backrest for long trips, especially on the interstate. A bunch of us are riding to Savannah and back Saturday (about 5 hours each way) so I'll slip on the bag just for a backrest. Takes about a minute to put in on or take it off. They come in various sizes, and mine is one of the larger ones.
For two-up riding, I'd have to get a rack and put it on the other way. But my girlfriend is only good for about 15 minutes on the bike before she'd rather be somewhere else, so for me it's solo riding 99.9999999% of the time.
I do notice the top weight, so if you do a lot of riding on twisty roads or do a lot of two-up riding, you might want to get saddle bags, whcih keep the load lower and can be kept on the bike most if not all of the time. Ghost brackets are great but expensive, or on the website www.intruderalert.ca you can find directions to mount rigid, leather-look bags on your Intruder without expensive hardware.

[dan330]

So if I get hard bags then I will not have to purchase the guards that protect them from the rear wheels? What does do the bags rest against?

I want to get bags too, but I dont want to do the guards, because they look bad if you take off the bags.

Later

[tlwisner]

Originally Posted by Izzy

I want to put some kind of bags on my Intruder 800. Right now I can't even bring home a bag of donuts without shoving them in my jacket. I'm thinking along the lines of saddle bags. I'd love to hear how you all went about picking out the "right" bags. What have you put on your bike? What size bags? And how have they worked out for you?

TIA.

I bought some cheap ones for my little GZ 250 from http://www.bikerleather.com/ and they work fine for me.

[Marcos]

I bought my bike from a guy that got it for his wife, but she ended up not wanting it. It already had saddle bags and a lot of other accesories. I use them all the time and I doubt I'd ever remove them.

[Uncle Bob]

Mine came with the OEM bags, thay have the bike logo stamped into the leather. They are rigid plastic on the inside so do not need any extra brackets.