Eclipse Tail Pack
Eclipse Tail Pack
CYCLE WORLD EVALUATION
Gottlieb Daimler had the world’s first motorcycle finished for about a week before he wondered how he could carry anything on it. Unfortunately for Gottlieb in 1885, the motorcycle soft luggage industry had yet to be invented.
Daimler solved his problem by forsaking motorcycles for cars, but present day motorcyclists have other alternatives. The soft luggage industry has blossomed into dozens of companies and a profusion of products that offer carrying space aboard motorcycles. There are tank bags and tank briefcases. There are nylon saddlebags in any size or shape, some with internal stiffening systems that rival suspension bridges. And occasionally there’s something new, something slightly different from what has been available before.
The Eclipse Tail Pack fits into this last category. It’s a fabric box with one rounded
corner designed to fit on the passenger’s portion of a motorcycle seat, or mount onto a luggage rack. It retains its form when empty through plastic panels that fit inside internal pouches in the fabric. A flap runs from the front of the box back over the rounded corner, zips shut on the sides with two zippers, and secures at the bottom with Velcro. A quick onehanded pull frees the Velcro seal and unzips the flap, exposing about 1200 cubic inches of storage space.
Attaching the Tail Pack to a motorcycle seat is literally a cinch; hooks at the end of nylon webbing straps attached to the bottom of the Tail Pack are slipped under the edge of a seat. A pull on each strap tightens the Tail Pack. For motorcycles without elaborately contoured seats, this attachment can be made quickly. We put the Tail Pack on our test BMW R80ST while a stopwatch ran, and found that, without hurrying, the operation took less than 10 sec. Taking it off was even quicker, requiring only a pull on each strap and hook, and 6 sec. total.
While the Tail Pack easily pops on most motorcycle seats, there are exceptions.
The short seat and dirt bike fender of a Honda XL600 kept the Tail Pack off; sports bikes with plastic tail sections often required that the rear straps hook under the plastic instead of the seat base, an arrangement more likely to scratch paint. And plastic tail sections with enclosed bottoms, as on Honda Interceptors and VT500 Ascots really complicate installation: the rear straps of the Tail Pack can’t be hooked anywhere on an Interceptor, and only work on an Ascot if the hooks are jammed in a crack between inner and outer plastic sections.
The alternative to seat mounting is rack mounting. Eclipse provides a strap that attaches to a rack, and the Tail Pack clips onto D-rings sewn to the strap. The strap can be left in place, and the Tail Pack will go on and off a rack as quickly as a seat.
Once in place on a bike, the Tail Pack is a useful size. Three six packs of 12 oz. cans fit inside with a little room left over, or enough clothes for a solo weekend trip along with a rainsuit can be carried without squeezing. Because the top doesn’t have to be zipped completely, it’s possible (if not totally secure) to carry a bag of groceries in the Tail Pack. And a handle on the back of the Tail Pack makes it easy to haul it and its contents inside at the end of a ride.
Where does the Tail Pack fit into the soft luggage universe? It’s a convenient alternative or supplement to a tank bag for solo riders when mounted on the seat, and is an enclosed equivalent of a milk crate when placed on a rack. For $55 the Tail Pack offers an attractive amount of quickly removable carrying space aboard a motorcycle.
Tail Packs are available in gray, black, or brown from motorcycle dealers or Eclipse Inc., P.O. Box 7370, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48107. Phone (313) 761-1 170. @
