Ties That Don't Bind, Bags That Don't Bounce
Ties That Don't Bind, Bags That Don't Bounce
Doug Richmond
During the planning stages of my first long-haul ride after a 15-year lay-off I figured that there must be a better way of tying my dunnage on the machine than the leather thongs I'd been using over a decade previous, so I hied myself down to that fountainhead of information, my Friendly Local Dealer.
The affable young salesman who'd sold me the BMW was more than happy to see my whiskery face again and promptly led me to a beautifully-designed display of trunks big enough for theatrical use and saddlebags that I'd have been afraid to hang on a dollar-footed mule for fear of being busted for the Society for the Pre vention of Cruelty to Animals.
"Here we have the very latest in color coordinated accessories for the touring rider," he smiled, dry-washing his hands the while in joyful anticipation of a whop per of a sale.
"Hey there, wait just a minute now," says I before things had a chance to get out of hand. "I'm only gonna take a lousy little 5000 km jaunt that will require a mere three weeks or so. I definitely am not going to make a tour of the Khyber Pass by way of Hammerfest! Plus none of thai stuff looks durable enough to take past the city limits and it is my stated intention to ride down the coast-more or less-to La Paz,
Baja California. Mexico. And I don't want the backtrail to look like the aftermath of a Corvette race!"
His smile collapsed as if he'd just re ceived a notice of increased alimony pay-
ments to his next-to-last wife. "Well, just exactly how much stuff do you intend to take along on this projected tour of yours?" "Let's put it this way. IF I wind up with as much as 15 kilos total baggage, then I'm makin2 some mistakes somewhere and I'll refigure the whole outfit."
"Okay, then," sez he. "I've got just the very thing for you." And he leads the way to another cleverly-designed point-of-sale display, albeit considerably less bulky and opulent than the one with the steamer trunks. "These dandy little elastic cords are used by most of the lightweight touring fraternity these days. As you can see, they have handy hooks on each end, making packing and unloading very fast and sim ple. In fact, I've been assured by my cus tomers who go in for lightweight touring that they can load their bikes in about two minutes, and off-load in about half that time. And best of all, they are very inex pensive."
So the upshot of it was that I allowed myself to be touted into buying four bungee cords, the first I'd ever seen off a flying machine, and worse yet, I used them on the upcoming Baja trip. Remember, this was way back in the good old days before either pavement or the manicuring Mex icans gave the dirt road so that a presiden tial candidate could get his wagon train of buses to the handful of potential voters in the area.
Actually, in the light of current knowledge, things went swimmingly at first, all things considered. In fact I made it all the way to Rancho Laguna Chapala, about three days south of Tijuana, without mishap.
Whereupon, things really came unstuck. Somew here in the maze of ruts that passed for a road just north of Punta Prieta my beautiful made-in-Scotland down-filled sleeping bag and Ensolite pad worked their way out from under the elastic and were lost to me forever. And at the same time two of the bungee cords parted company with the bike. All I had left was the canvas roll that contained my extra shirts, shorts and socks, plus a tarp.
This was back in the days when there were no hotels, motels or gas stations for almost 1000 kilometers. I was lucky to log 150 kilometers a day and lots of days I didn’t make a hundred. Translated, I “siwashed it” under the tarp with a cowchip fire for heat for about 10 days, and if you think Baja California is nice and warm in April you probably believe in gnomes, elves and little men, too!
I haven’t trusted a soul under the age of 30 since.
Years before I’d had fair-to-middling results in New Mexico and Chihuahua with leather thongs for tie-downs, so I figured that all I had to do was turn back the clock, overlooking the obvious: Rain is extremely rare in Nuevo Mex but not where I was currently riding. And when I took off from London—England, not Kentucky—in a driving rain on my way to Dover I spent more time relashing my stuff than I did riding. Wet leather stretches. And stretches. And stretches some more.
The next step was nylon rope about 6mm in diameter (hemp was out of the question because of its unfortunate tendency to tighten and jam its knots when wet). I discovered the hard way that nylon did not take kindly to knots or splices and was extremely susceptible to chafing.
Actually I used the nylon rope with a bit of success until I went back to Baja with a small bike and the intention of making an extremely fast run to La Paz. On this trip the nylon chafed through just north of San Ignacio and tangled itself in the spokes of the rear wheel which put me on my gourd (luckily!) in a sandy wash.
Right then and there I resolved that as soon as I got back to the U S of A I would make a thorough investigation of techniques for tying things to things.
And I was fortunate enough to encounter a young entrepreneur yclept Bob Swanson who was a partner in a thenfledgling manufacturing company in Richmond, California called Sierra Designs.
Bob was not only a climber, backpacker, white-water runner and generalduty outdoorsman, but he was also a cycle rider. When I put my problem before him he simply grinned and went back into his workshop and brought out about 6 meters of what looked to be a fiat-braided tape but which, on close examination, turned out to be a braided tube. In the flat configuration it was about 14mm wide and turned out to be stronger than a garliceater's breath. I’ve yet to find anything more resistant to chafing and fraying.
This last should read . . fraying if properly treated.” If you simply cut the tubing with a knife or shears it will surely unravel, especially if the end is allowed to flap about in the wind created by a fasttravelling motorcycle. The people who sell it customarily use a “hot-wire cutter,” something the ordinary sickle rider doesn't usually have in his tool chest. I’ve found that a soldering gun will do the job equally well. Lacking this elementary mechanic’s tool. I’ve simply cut the tubing with my Swiss Army Knife and then heated the raw end with a lighter until the nylon melted. It can even catch fire. If it does, simply blow out the flame. But be careful. When melted, nylon will drip like molasses and if a drop lands on bare skin it will raise a blister like you wouldn’t believe!
But I was still faced with the problem of actually tying the stuff on the bike. First I tried the reef knot in several configurations, including the single bow and the double bow. but that was always less than satisfied because it proved very difficult to draw the lashings tight enough to hold the load in place on tough terrain. And with the straight reef knot if I did get everything snug enough to do the job, then getting the knot loose was strictly a jackknife operation.
After studying the Ashley Book of Knots from cover to cover (620 pages), and searching the University of California (Berkeley) without avail, I w'as about on the point of giving up on the project, but about this time the cooking half of my life partnership sent me down to the butcher shop to fetch a rolled roast.
I’ve always been fascinated by a person doing his (or her) job well, and this German butcher was a whiz at his; he triced that hunk of beef so fast it seemed like a magician’s trick, although the actual knots he used were unsuited for my particular purpose.
Things were a mite slow around his shop, so I explained that I was searching for a knot that could be used to tighten a lashing to any practical degree, yet would be reasonably easy to untie. Because German is definitely not one of my long suits, and also because his English was pretty well concentrated in the steaks and chops end of the language, it took a bit of time to get the idea across. But I knew I’d hit paydirt when he began to grin and nod his head.
“Ja, vat you vant is vat ve call a ‘corned, beef knot.’ Ven you tie up a brisket you gotta have a knot is adjustable because meat shrinks in der brine. Come back of the counter und I vill show you how ve learn in Old Country.”
What he demonstrated was basically a simple slip knot based on the figure-eight rather than the usual overhand-based knot familiar to everyone who was ever exposed to the scouting movement. The slip knot is tied around the bight rather than being used as a conventional slip knot and the knot is untied by pulling the loop of the slip knot through the figure-eight. In applying, the knot is tied and the end of the lashing pulled down until it is of a sufficient tightness, whereupon the loose end is given a single half-hitch around the loop of the slip knot. Unless this last refinement is added the knot will gradually work itself loose. Finish by tucking the ends under the lashing to keep the nylon from whipping about in the breeze and eventually fraying and unravelling.
Thanks to my German friend, I thought my troubles were pretty well over but I found that for really rough country the luggage strapped firmly to the cycle took a terrific beating, even with the vast improvement in suspension technology in recent years. Although 1 stopped losing stuff wholesale along the trail, I began to be plagued with small hard objects, such as spark plugs and tools, working their way through the sturdy canvas bags I use for cargo containers.
So I hied myself back to Brother Swanson, and it turned out he had faced the same problem.
“Any experienced rider,” he said, “naturally gets up on the pegs when confronted with an especially rough stretch. This takes a lot of the effort off the suspension and transfers it to his legs, but it also makes his body’s ride a lot smoother. Therefore, if you carry some or all of your outfit on your shoulders and back, it follows that your belongings will not be beat about nearly as much. Mountaineers use a bag called a “Day-tripper” for short jaunts. This is nothing like the cheapies peddled to bicycle riders, casual walkers-about-town and students. The climber’s Day-tripper has to be tougher than a shoat’s nose because nobody is harder on equipment than a climber. This Day-tripper has the bottom covered with oil-tanned leather and also has all sorts of leather tabs for tying things on with the same tubing you use. Although ours and our competitors’ Day-trippers are intended specifically for climbers, I’ve found that they can’t be beaten for motorcyclists who habitually ride the rough country. Of course, the problem of things working through the bottom is completely eliminated. And almost all Day-trippers are made with two compartments, one above the other, which saves the trouble of rooting through the whole bag to locate a spark plug or wrench that always works its way to the bottom.”
So I promptly conned Bob out of a Daytripper and used it on a number of subsequent trips and found it lived up to his comments in every respect, plus another he didn’t think of. Or take into consideration.
One of the constant problems with longdistance riding is that with the dunnage lashed to the bike one can’t simply leave the loaded scooter unattended while parked on the street. To do so is to invite the attention of the first layabout who comes along with a sharp knife. With the Day-tripper or a tote bag, one simply unties it and takes it along while strolling about the town, wining, dining or whatever.
But in many places, especially Mexico and Latin America anyone, no matter how respectable otherwise, is automatically suspected of all kinds of nefarious activities when he carries a backpack.
A couple years or so ago a wayfarerwith-a-packsack was turned down for a room at the Hotel Señoral in Oaxaca solelv because of the pack, whereas I, standing next in line with my possessions in a tote bag with its single strap over one shoulder, seemed to be as welcome as the flowers in May.
The Day-tripper is still my standard for really rough country, but otherwise I carry my stuff in a round canvas duffle bag, or a “tote bag” made by any one of a number of companies. I used a fine tote bag by Norm Thompson until it wore out and then replaced it w ith one from Land’s End. Both the duffle bags and the tote bags have zippers.
With both the tote bags and the round duffle rolls, I remove the carrying strap and zip it inside before I lash them to the bike. The straps are equipped with harness snaps that connect to “D” rings on either end of the bags. This obviates any opportunity for the carrying strap to obey Murphy’s Laws and tangle in the back wheel.
Both tote bags and duffle rolls come in every imaginable size, from little bitsy jobbies that would be hard-pressed to enclose a spare shirt and shorts up to huge outfits like those issued by the armed forces that would outfit a reasonably foresighted person for at least a year, but I’ve pretty well standardized on fairly small bags that hold about 0.8 cubic feet both in the roll form and the more conventional tote configuration.
It is vital that the bag be filled to capacity. If the bag is too big for its contents, it will be limp and no amount of lashing will prevent it from flopping around and beating itself to pieces.
On a recent cycle trip to Costa Rica wore a bag out in riding over some of the worst roads in Central America, so I spent half a day in San José looking for a suitable replacement. The best I could come up with was a monster duffle bag that held a bit over 1.4 cubic feet and I didn’t have enough in the way of personal possessions to come anywhere near filling it. So I went down to a yard-goods store and bought about 10 meters of heavy cotton cloth with a típico pattern that I used to fill up the waste space. I thought it would please my womenfolk, too, when I got back to the States.
It did.
Note that I lash my gear to the back of the seat. This is a habit I fell into because so few of the motorcycles I’ve used boasted a luggage rack worthy of the name. And when they were equipped with a carrier it was so far aft that it upset the balance and handling of the bike. Therefore, I use the rear suspension mounts and the frame extension, or the suspension mounts and the turn indicators as tie points.
Following are five suppliers I have dealt with over the years and have found to be reliable purveyors of quality merchandise. All issue catalogs.
(I have no financial interest in any of them)
L. L. Bean Incorporated Freeport. ME 04033
Land’s End 2317 N. Elston Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
R.E.I.*
P.O. Box 24827 Seattle, WA 98124
Sierra Designs 247 Fourth St.
Oakland, CA 94607
Norm Thompson P.O. Box 3999 Portland, OR 97208
*Catalogs 3/s" and 3A" webbing, both suitable for luggage lashing.
