Rocinante gets some Jewelry
Oct 24, 2017

One thing about motorcycles is they don't have much storage space.

I have been carrying my rain pants and seat cover in the square, black pouch on the back of my jacket. I thought it'd be better to have a little luggage rack on the bike.

Amazon to the rescue! $120? Well . . . OK. That seems a bit much, but OK.

And that's what it looks like. It is quite pretty and shiny, perfect for little Rocinante.

Even though it is pretty sturdy, it does have this weight limitation sticker. Not important for me, but others might consider a different rack.

She's metric, of course (damn you, Ronald Reagan! We should ALL be metric.) so I had to get some metric wrenches, of course. And motorcycles are put together pretty tightly, so I got stubbies.

And, of course, there is a nut on the back of the bolt, so I needed two wrenches. Luckily, I already had a set of metric wrenches (of course - the rest of the whole frigging WORLD is metric!) so it was a non-issue.

The rack comes with new bolts (screws?) and they are a tad longer because now they have to go through the rack as well as the fender.

Hex head, eh? Nobody said no nuthin' 'bout no hex heads. Good thing I am prepared.(stupid autofocus)

When you first put the rack on, it is spread about 25mm (1", for you luddites) too wide. This is actually a GREAT thing as you can put it on without scratching your chrome, and Rocinante has beautiful chrome.

Tighten it down, zip, zip, zip!

Oh, that's purty! Looks fast, too!

That's it? $120 to carry a homemade seat cover? To put it in better perspective: An 8-hour workday at $15 an hour? To put it in even BETTER perspective: If the worker is paying 25% in taxes (state and fed) then it is actually an 8-hour workday at $20/hr. That's what love does to you - it makes you stupid.