Woodswoman
Member
This is a great mod — not mine; I take no credit for it — that I think should be shared far and wide.
Let’s say you purchase soft saddle bags, and you’d like to mount them on your CTX700. Now, if you had a more typical cruiser, you’d be able to buy rectangular metal brackets of this sort …
... that would make the soft bags stand away from the wheel for safety, and would give you a place to tie the bags down. But nobody makes such a thing for the CTX.
Enter an ingenious CTX owner (whose name, I think, is Bill). He realized that a piece of metal running across the rear wheel well from the tie-down loop to the reflector would be keep his soft bags off his wheel.
He headed to a hardware store and found the right thing was made by Rubbermaid, as part of a modular closet organizing system. The component is a 25-inch-long black metal shelf bracket that has holes in it in which baskets and whatnot are mounted. (Hence I have dubbed this "the closet rod mod.")
Here (blurrily) is what the brackets/rods look like.
Here’s a picture of a receipt for the rods’ purchase, showing part numbers.
Installing them is dead simple.
One end is bolted under the rear fender reflector. The other end can be attached to the OEM bungee loop however you please. I attached mine with a couple of black zip ties on each side.
That’s it! Now you throw saddlebags under or over your pillion seat, and they won’t contact your rear tire. Naturally, these brackets also give you a place to which the bags can be strapped so they don’t flap around.
Two additional bits of info from my own experience with this:
(1) If you try to run the soft saddlebags under your seat, be prepared for the seat to be quite difficult to reinstall.
(2) Whether you throw the soft bags over your seat or under it, put something on your CTX’s painted panels to prevent scratching. The bags *will* move enough to mar whatever plastic finish they come in contact with. And don’t believe any manufacturer’s assurance that their bags won’t leave marks.
Let’s say you purchase soft saddle bags, and you’d like to mount them on your CTX700. Now, if you had a more typical cruiser, you’d be able to buy rectangular metal brackets of this sort …
... that would make the soft bags stand away from the wheel for safety, and would give you a place to tie the bags down. But nobody makes such a thing for the CTX.
Enter an ingenious CTX owner (whose name, I think, is Bill). He realized that a piece of metal running across the rear wheel well from the tie-down loop to the reflector would be keep his soft bags off his wheel.
He headed to a hardware store and found the right thing was made by Rubbermaid, as part of a modular closet organizing system. The component is a 25-inch-long black metal shelf bracket that has holes in it in which baskets and whatnot are mounted. (Hence I have dubbed this "the closet rod mod.")
Here (blurrily) is what the brackets/rods look like.
Here’s a picture of a receipt for the rods’ purchase, showing part numbers.
Installing them is dead simple.
One end is bolted under the rear fender reflector. The other end can be attached to the OEM bungee loop however you please. I attached mine with a couple of black zip ties on each side.
That’s it! Now you throw saddlebags under or over your pillion seat, and they won’t contact your rear tire. Naturally, these brackets also give you a place to which the bags can be strapped so they don’t flap around.
Two additional bits of info from my own experience with this:
(1) If you try to run the soft saddlebags under your seat, be prepared for the seat to be quite difficult to reinstall.
(2) Whether you throw the soft bags over your seat or under it, put something on your CTX’s painted panels to prevent scratching. The bags *will* move enough to mar whatever plastic finish they come in contact with. And don’t believe any manufacturer’s assurance that their bags won’t leave marks.
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