The Adventures of FriarJohn on Two (and Sometimes Four) Wheels

Too bad I didn’t know about these saddlebags a couple years ago.

My vacation pictures from British Columbia, July 2005.

The story:

I was traveling solo to Spokane, WA, in August. I decided to take the road less traveled. In 2003 or 2004, a friend clued me in to the absolutely beautiful but somewhat remote road from the top of St. Joe’s pass, approximately 14 miles from St. Regis, MT, 100 miles to St. Maries, ID. That 14 miles was gravel, but it was beautiful black asphalt from the top of the pass as you cross the border into Idaho, Or so I thought. Map.

Half to a dozen miles down from St. Joe’s pass, a little way past the “C” marker in the map I linked to above, I got a little wild at about 55-60 over some frost-heaved asphalt. It had only been a year or two since seeing fresh asphalt there so I was not expecting problems. My bike started bucking and bouncing as I went over the bumps. I had my hands full keeping it straight and upright so that I didn’t run off the road and down the 40-50′ embankment into the St. Joe River. As I passed the bad pavement and got it back under control, I noticed a grinding noise. I was dragging my right saddleback behind me.

Near as I can tell, as I was bouncing around the bike bucked me up a little out of my seat, then another bump shoved the bike up into me. That was enough to pop the right bag off the Easy Bracket posts. The only reason I didn’t lose the bag to the river is that in addition to the Easy Brackets I had a rear bracket to support the bags, bolted to the rear fender. Turns out I had an old style of lock from the Easy Brackets folks. They replaced the locks but it was up to me to fix the bag.

So once I got stopped on the side of the road and inspected the damage, it was as you see above. There were multiple impact and scrape marks. I was able to wrench the bag around and up, bending the rear bracket into shape. I forced it back onto the posts and I was able to continue on to Spokane.

The Damage

After the initial impact on the lower front and the front surface got all scraped up, the bike pole vaulted the rear end over the upper front corner as the bag rotated down and back. Then it got dragged behind the bike, attached only by the rear bracket (not visible), grinding off the inside-upper corner.

The Update

I was able to sand the bag down, both the plastic sides and the aluminum trim, and have the former repainted. The damage isn’t completely gone but it is minimized quite effectively.