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[ST] GIVI bag failure



Howdy,

	I had a most interesting ride this evening. While cruising down
one of my favorite local backroads, I had occasion to pass a slower
moving cage. Not really being in a big hurry to make the pass, I take
my time and keep the relative speed difference to a minimum. As I am
drifting back into my lane and coming across the centerline, I hit a
small but sharp bump in the road that sends a pretty harsh jolt through
the bike. It is nothing of note really except for the fact that nary an
instant later I am hit in the back, on my upper shoulders and helmet,
by a flying E50 topcase. As I glance back behind me I see my bag
spinning and bouncing wildly at about 75mph. Off it goes into the weeds
and woods as I turn my attention back to winding road ahead.
	I pull over at the crest of a hill to turn around. As I am
waiting, the car I just passed pulls into the driveway where I am
sitting. Apparently, this is her destination. I stop the bike and walk
over to make sure she is okay and to see if the bag ever contacted her
car. She's fine and informs me that she had no idea what it was, but
she saw it come off the bike and was able to slow and avoid hitting it
as it danced its bizarre ballet across the asphalt. I apoligize for
having scared her. Thank goodness I was not in the middle of some
squidly rpm screaming pass when I went around her. She seemed quite
calm about the whole thing hehe.
	I head back to see what might be left of the bag. It is sitting
off on the shoulder, wedged under the lower strand of a barbed wire
fence against the trunk of a large tree, unopend and mostly intact! A
few minor pieces of plastic trim have popped out of place and are
easily put right. Other than some serious road rash on the exterior of
the bag, it seems to be fine and completely intact.
	Upon closer inspection, I immediately spot the cause of the
bag's untimely departure. The main latch mechanism suffered a brittle
metal fracture when I hit the bump. See this picture:

http://pages.tca.net/sfriday/VFR800/E50-failure1.jpg

The interesting thing is that the bag was very nearly empty at the
time. I had some gloves and a face shield in it. The bright silver spot
on the dark metal is the failure point. This is the piece that hooks
into the post at the rear of the base plate. I did not find the piece
that broke off. Now I wonder if GIVI will cover this under warranty?
The bag is about 1 year old of course.
	I am most fortunate that there was not another rider behind me.
I am also glad that it did not bounce up and into the woman's
windshield. This could have really been a bad scene if things had gone
only slightly different in an instant. I will gladly replace this bag
with another GIVI. I have used them on both of our VFR's for a few
years now and am quite impressed with their durability and quality. I
just hope that this particular failure is a "freak" thing and not
likely to occur again. So those of you out there toting GIVI bags,
think twice about overloading them!

Adios,

- -- 
Scott Friday
98-VFR800@xxxxxxxxxxxx
2001 Honda VFR 800 Fi His in Red
1998 Honda VFR 800 Fi Hers in Blue - RED BODYWORK FOR SALE!!

http://BackroadMotorcycleTours.com/
http://sfriday.com/
http://pages.tca.net/sfriday/ (mirror site)




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