How to Road Trip with a Honda Fury (Part 2)

Published on October 4, 2015

I thought I would update my set up for the Honda Fury and I love it when my hobbies intersect. After getting some great information from a guy I met while I was checking out Avenue of the Giants in Northern California. He rode a Honda Fury, as well and was outfitted with saddle bags and a tall windshield. After I returned, I started doing some more digging.

First, I found these after-market seats (solo and pillion/passenger). I had found a nice set of throw-over saddlebags, but those have since disappeared and my shop mentioned they were backordered. Hopefully them came back in stock. In the meantime, I still needed something small and the tank bag I'd recently acquired when I purchased a used Suzuki V-Strom didn't fit. That's OK, though, the tank bag will be handy when I use the V-Strom for it's intended purpose - as an alternate bike that would let me do some adventure riding.

I digress, though. The entire reason I'm still hunting stems from the fact that while the sissy bar and bags set up worked for my one trip, I had a couple issues with my hardware choices. I should have gotten locking nuts for the bolts holding the sissy bar to the mount. So, if you're trying that out, don't make the same mistake I did. I had one of the bolts shake loose on Epic Road Trip 2015 and after I replaced it, I had a second one (different bolt) shake loose in the first few weeks of being back in Phoenix.

I hadn't planned to keep the sissy bar and mount in place year round anyway, so I removed it and went back to the stock look with the pillion seat and no sissy bar. Unfortunately, this made even quick trips where I needed to carry something small a hassle. Take, for instance, this past weekend. I'd been working a ton in the two months since I got back. After completing a major platform upgrade for a client I needed some time to "re-center". So I decided to take a long ride out toward the White Mountains.

I didn't really have a plan (those make for some of the best trips) and settled on a Phoenix-Pinetop-Payson loop, via the Salt River Canyon (always awesome), Highway 260, and the Beeline (Highway 87). I had to deal with some rain this time around, but that was OK because I had brought my Frogg Toggs and the waterproof/windproof and warmth liner for my new Joe Rocket jacket. I found this while I was having the shop check out my new V-Strom and it's their first attempt at a 4-season jacket. It held up pretty well in the cooler temperatures at 7,700 feet elevation and with my all-weather gloves (the ones I bought for my Seattle Trip), I didn't have any issues with cold hands and temps were in the low- to mid-50s.

I didn't want to wear my Frogg Toggs the entire trip, though. It was cool enough when I left Phoenix, that I needed the jacket liner, but I had spent some time Saturday afternoon tinkering with an idea I had involving a Topeak MTX trunk bag left over from my days commuting from south to north Scottsdale on my bike. Here's a picture of it (it's about 4 years old, at this point, but still in decent shape and the side pockets unfold into thin pannier bags):

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On the bottom, there's a hard plastic rail that is intended to fit the bike trunk rack from the same company. It's attached to the base of the bag (which is shaped) with some screws. Even so, with the yellow bungees stretched and wrapped around the foot-peg base and the red bungee looped through the back of the bag (via the bottle holder straps) and each end attached to the rear fender, just behind the tail light mount I had no problems. No damage was caused to my fender. I left the pillion seat in place and pulled everything snug and it held like a champ, even at freeway speeds.

The top of the bag expands about another inch, which was enough to pack my jacker linings into the bag after I got back to Phoenix altitude around 3:30 PM. In total, I fit my frogg toggs, jacket water and warmth liners, cell phone, extra set of gloves, and a snack inside the bag without any issues.

The next time I try this, I'm going to have the plastic rail off and I'm going to attempt to locate some decent, non-scratch, foam padding to affix to the bottom in the rail's place to give the bag a little more support against the fender. I also want to find a better way to hold the bag down.  The tank bag clip that keeps my tank bag on the V-Strom was looped through the rear seat strap, but it wasn't enough. That's when I added the two yellow bungees. I'd also like to try something similar to how the sissy bar bag was set up, where I has some sort of clip that I had looped around the base of the tail light stems.

There will be more updates to this saga as I keep looking for the right solutions.

Anybody else have something they've tried? Let me know in the comments.