One of the very important parts of the preparation for a long journey is choosing the bags and organizing the luggage you are going to take. In our case going around the world on motorcycle means to have a very limited room for the stuff you can carry and also that you must be ready to face every kind of weather and road conditions
You must have some winter clothes, summer clothes and a pair of shoes for when you are not riding, also then extra tools, spare parts, kitchen, camping gear and electronics like computer, camera and hard drives. Basically you need to reduce everything you have and get a small version of your home.
Before we started our travel we didn’t know what exactly we are going to need of what kind of things it will be a waste of space, but with the experience on the road we were learning every day from the different situations and adapting our equipment every time in to the best way possible.
When we bought the bike in Sevilla the seller saw really fast that we were completely ignorant about what kind of cases we will need, he basically discover we were ignorant about everything related to motorcycle so he recoomend us the Givi Trekker side hardbags. This was the best model GIVI had back in 2012 but a couple of years later, when we went from clients to ambassadors for GIVI we change to the aluminum models GIVI OUTBACK.
Why did we choose hardbags instead of soft ones?
- If you make a long trip you will probably want to document it so you are going to carry computer and cameras, things that in soft bag can be easily damaged. After many falls and vibration of the road we complete the 4 years with same computer, means it was well protected in the bag from vibration, wet and dust.
- It was good because we were riding off-road for many kilometers and many times we were falling down, so the hardbags it was protecting me because they receive the hit instead of my leg.
- We also found a very useful characteristic for the hardbags and is that in the days of camping we could use them as a chair for seating, table for eating or desk for working in our computer
- The locker system is very good when you have to park the motorbike far from you and keep your important things safe inside.
We were reducing a lot our luggage during the travel. We learned to adapt to every possible situation with less things, to the point that for us (2 personas on one single motorcycle) it was enough with 2 side hardbags Trekker Outback of 37 L and one extra waterproof soft bag of 40 liters we carry in the back of the motorbike. We recommend this bags because our journey it was a realy good test crossing some of the more extreme environments in the world and our stuff were always safety and dry. And believe us, this is really important when you are out there far from everywhere.
If you want to know more about this topic, you may be interested in the following posts:
- How to protect ourselves during a motorbike journey
- The 5 gadgets you will use the most on a motorbike journey
Beside the Bags from Givi we got different accesories like the led projectors, engine guard and carter protector, very useful parts for bike and long distance travel which include many off-road stages.
Remember, don’t broke your head adding to many stuff to your cases. Go basic and think about what is really necessary. Traveling light and safe it must be your goal.
If you are very confuse about the preparation of your gear fell free to write us comment asking your questions.
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