Its the new one. The shape and fitting is the same. But the silver lid panel is more solid as are the panniers. The quality of the panniers by the way has gone up. With regards to the new top box fitting, the plate now fits differently. As the new grab handles do not have any screw holds, the plate clamps and hooks on the the grab rails onto the supportingt bars. The bars are now contoured along the bike's curves so are more integrated. You can't really see them on most of the borchure shots.
Really hard decision between riding and taking photos. That's all the nice pics from my recent N Wales trip. Will find time for more dedicated shoots when the full system arrives probably.
Still cannot understand why the panniers and topbox are that colour on the new bike. Just looks wrong to me.
I think its to give it the impression of solidity. The price of the Touring Pack has gone up but the lids are definitely more robust, weather proof and the locking mechanicsm much better. The cynic in me says its to woo those GS fanboys that use their metal luggage as a Panini sticker book. The older Multi's luggage look so integrated, and the whole bike, loaded with luggage look so complete that it would be a travesty to mod it.
Picked it up Saturday. not enough words to say how good it is, but what i will say is; that after FOUR GS's there won't be another one. This bike does it all for me but with a grin on your face. :Happy::Happy:
Indeed. The boxes are far more solid and the lids more robust. Weatherproofing and locking mechanism improved, as you say. Sadly the hooks attaching the boxes to the slots on the bike are weaker (although the slots themselves are stronger), and several people have already reported hooks snapping off. One step forward and one step back.
A few snaps of our recent tour around Sardinia. The original plan was to use the AutoSlaap motorail/sleeper train from Holland(Den Bosch) to Italy (Livorno), and then get the overnight ferry from Livorno to Oblia in Sardinia -with the reverse for the journey home. Unfortunately, the AutoSlaap company stopped trading a month before we due to go, so I used BikeShuttle to ship the bike from near Northampton (just over 12 miles from my home) to Geneva while we flew out from Luton with EasyJet. BikeShuttle truck the bike out on Tuesday morning and it arrives the next morning. Considering it's their first year of operations, BikeShuttle are totally sorted. The guys that run it, Declan and Guy, are keen motorcyclists and wanted a better way get their own (and friends) bikes down to Southern Europe. Declan already runs fleet of vehicles for his own business, and has years of experience of shipping expensive equipment around the UK and into Europe. The whole team are very professional and friendly. I was impressed by the setup and organisation. allo The truck was at the hotel near Geneva and the bikes unloaded before we got up for breakfast on the Wednesday morning. Not bad given I watched the truck leave Northampton at 11:30am the day before. A ferry to Sardinia was booked for Saturday evening, so we had 4 days to ride from Geneva to Livorno which meant I could plan some nice routes and my wife had short days on the bike. We stayed in hotels in St.Jean de Maurienne, Asti and Rapallo. Just as well I'd planned to use the Frejus tunnel as most cols were closed because of snow. My wife was not impressed when the ice warding came up on the dash as we climbed to enter the tunnel. We had two weeks in Sardinia, touring around, mostly one day on / one day off the bike. We stayed at Alghero, Oristano (for Tharros), Carlofote (on a small island off the south west corner of Sardinia), Cagliari (3 nights in an apartment with a washing machine), Escola (for Su Nuraxi) and Nuoro. We saw no other British registered bikes the whole time we were on Sardinia. Lots of German, Swiss and a few Austrian registered bikes. Obviously quite a few Italian registered bikes. Definitely got into double figures of Multistradas including a few 1000/1100s plus my first sighting of a 1200DVT in the wild. The roads were magic, the food was great and the weather got better and better. We were there for the last week of May and first week of June - no sure I'd want to ride a bike in Sardinia in August as it could be very hot and crowded. Most days we saw more bikes than cars on the roads between the towns. The road surfaces were generally excellent, some gravel/sand on minor roads. If you lived on Sardinia I think you could wear out the tyres on the shoulders first. The return ferry from Oblia to Livorno. The Germans and Swiss didn't seem interested in my bike as it wasn't a BWM or Harley (respectively). We then had to do the return journey from Livorno to Geneva via different roads and luckily very much better weather, stopping at Genoa, Pinerolo and Annecy. Dropped the bike off at the hotel near Geneva on Tuesday night and flew home that evening. BikeShuttle picked up the bike on Wednesday and shipped it back to Northampton for me to collect on Thursday lunchtime. Now I've just got to clean the bike and remove some accessories, as it gets traded in for a 1200DVT model in a couple of days. I've already started to plan a tour of Corsica for next year, obviously I'll be using BikeShuttle.
