Thursday 29 May 2008

Transporting stuff with the Mana

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, one of the main reasons why I preferred the Mana over the other possible choices was its practical aspects. The trunk, in particular, really appealed to me.

At the moment I fill it in with a long Abus chain, the bike's documents, a pair of rain trousers and a very light rain jacket. When I park the bike, I put the chain-lock on and I fit the rest of the trunk's content into the helmet, which I then put into the trunk.

However, even with this trunk, the Mana cannot obviously compete with a scooter in terms of luggage space. And when you need to transport a gym bag or a business suitcase, you need to use a spider net.

You can obviously also use a shoulder strap bag, but if there is a sensation I hate in life is that of having a bag on my shoulder. I go to the extreme of not bringing stuff just so that I do not have to carry it on me, even when I walk....

Fitting a bag with a spider net on the passenger's portion of the saddle is realtively easy: there is a small hook on each side of the bike that can used to fix the net. However, I find the distance between them and the passenger handle - the only other point of anchorage - to be too much...they should have put a couple of additional hooks in between.




In any case, the bag tied up like this seems stable, and doesn't move. I want to avoid having to buy a back case, as it would really spoil the line of the Mana...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi DP. I agree with you about the bag. Now I have two different types of backpack, hard & soft, and doesn't satisfy me. I'll consider spidernet, free my shoulder^^.

Meanwhile, there's info for the official sidebag of Mana you can check. It's well fit along with LeoVince exhaust, too. Check the below link^^.

http://cafe.naver.com/apriliakorea.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=47

Demonio Pellegrino said...

Hi Lewis, thanks for the info. I knew about the hard sidebags. They are made by Givi. Unfortunately tou cannot fit on the mana the givi E41 which I already own for the V-strom...and I don't feel like paying 500 euros for the aprilia bags...I will use soft saddle bags if I need to.

Anonymous said...

I'm with you on this. Somehow I'm not interested in hard type side bag. Somehow seems that it does not feel right as "Naked" bike spirit^^.

Demonio Pellegrino said...

exactly. the only problem is that with the exhaust pipe coming so high you need to be careful or else the bag touches the exhaust and your stuff gets burnt

unedame said...

Congratulations Dem!
Yous moto-blog is very intresting!
But my grench is better than my english...:-D

Lontana

Demonio Pellegrino said...

Thank you Lontana...but don't worry...comments in Italian or French are also welcome...

Biker Betty said...

I have a spider net and love it. I have tried using a backpack. With the armor in my motorcycle jacket it is very hard to get on and even harder to wrestle off.

Great blog,
Biker Betty

Demonio Pellegrino said...

Hello Biker Betty, welcome! Yes, using a backpack with an armor jacket is very uncomfortable...and I wonder whether the backpack can actually have repercussions on the level of protection in case you were to fall off...