Pannier idea

[Johnnottey]

Completed my second motorcycle camping trip in June 2022; eleven days, 3600 miles from Pennsylvania down Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway, then Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky,
West Virginia, and Maryland. 2010 NT700V (red) purchased used in February 2021. Bike was great but the pannier opening system gave me some headaches and I wish the panniers had more capacity and were easier to load. A top loading pannier ( hard or soft) seems to make much more sense for motorcycle camping. Thought it would be really neat (and attractive) to replace the built in panniers with two silver or black Givi top-load panniers. Seems like a lot of work though.

Realized the low center of gravity and efficient use of space (closeness to rear wheel) of the stock pannier “cavities” actually present some great opportunities to increase the flexibility of this great bike. Am planning to remove the pannier lids, attach two 2-inch wide nylon webbing and buckles at each cavity, and use a 40 liter roll-top, top loading, waterproof duffel on each side. I ordered the nylon buckles and webbing from Amazon and hope to install them this week. This will increase the capacity and also be convenient for keeping things organized inside my camp tent. Plan to continue using the stock lids when not on an extended trip. I hope to add pictures when pannier project is complete.

Also, I’m getting 68 to 70 miles per US gallon; 93 octane and not an aggressive rider. Has anyone had this experience?

 

[Phil Tarman]

I'll be looking forward to your pictures of the pannier experiment.

I've been tracking gas mileage with Fuelly for 108K of the 139K I put on Dudley, my 1st NT, and for 5900 of the 6300, I've put on Horse, NT#2. 47.1mpg on Dudley, 49.8mpg on Horse. Of course, out here in the west our speed limits are higher, so I'm usually riding 70mph or better. The best mileage I've gotten out here has been 66.3 on Horse, 68.6 on Dudley.

 

[Johnnottey]

Thanks for the feedback, Phil.
I know that higher speeds cause the MPG to go down. The Blue Ridge Parkway has a 45 MPH speed limit and is a gorgeous two lane road to ride a motorcycle on. I often found myself doing 70 MPH on the two lane highways in Georgia and Alabama during my trip, just to keep up with traffic, and it certainly reduced the MPG. I generally ride two lane state roads here in Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey, and speeds are often between 40 and 50 MPH, which is just fine with me.

I have found the NT700V to be a very versatile motorcycle with mostly great seat comfort, good upright riding position, decent power and braking, an amazing windshield and weather protection, and terrific fuel economy to boot. Probably the smartest motorcycle decision I have ever made, and I have had 10 bikes since getting back into riding in 2009. My NT700V is most definitely a “keeper”. Sure, there are faster and sexier bikes out there (ST1300 for one) but one of the other major things that I like about the NT is the weight. I had a Gold-wing previously and it was just too much bike for me.

 

[ARKNT]

The pannier latches are one of the NT's weak points.
Be sure to send pics our way of your mods.
I don't own an NT anymore but am still interested in them and this site has much good info and people.

Arknt

 

[Woodaddict]

Also, I’m getting 68 to 70 miles per US gallon; 93 octane and not an aggressive rider. Has anyone had this experience?

don't waste your money on 93 octane. NT is NOT a high compression engine. just use 87, octane rating in an engine not designed to run that, will just burn your money. you can same MPG with just 87. you will find, slower speeds with mountain riding will give you really good MPG. me running 73mph, on interstate, summer - 56, winter - 52 mpg. also don't rely on NT computer, divide your miles / gal to get accurate #. the computer MPG rates are higher than actual

 

[cliffh]

+1 on don't rely on the NT computer. My computer fairly consistently shows about 10 mpg higher than I get when I do the math.

Cliff

 

[Johnnottey]

Hey Cliff, I’m planning to calculate the average MPG via miles / gallons again, but a year ago I actually did calculate it that way it it was only a few percentage points off of the bike’s computer. I don’t do much high speed riding.

 

[Phil Tarman]

Hey Cliff, I’m planning to calculate the average MPG via miles / gallons again, but a year ago I actually did calculate it that way it it was only a few percentage points off of the bike’s computer. I don’t do much high speed riding.

If you haven't tried Fuelly (Fuelly.com), I highly recommend it as an accurate and reliable way to keep gas mileage records.

 

[DirtFlier]

Yup, I use the old fashioned way with pencil & paper to calculate MPG on each fill-up.

 

[mikesim]

Yup, I use the old fashioned way with pencil & paper to calculate MPG on each fill-up.

Wow!! You ARE old fashioned! I use the calculator on my phone!

Mike

This post just got me to thinkin'...... I haven't done division with pencil and paper in...... I don't know how long..... I'm gonna try it when I get done with this post to see if I can still do it. Not long ago in another post we got to talking about slide rules so I resurrected my old rule and tried it and I still remembered how to do that.

Mike

 

[junglejim]

Wow!! You ARE old fashioned! I use the calculator on my phone!

Mike

This post just got me to thinkin'...... I haven't done division with pencil and paper in...... I don't know how long..... I'm gonna try it when I get done with this post to see if I can still do it. Not long ago in another post we got to talking about slide rules so I resurrected my old rule and tried it and I still remembered how to do that.

Mike

If you think division is hard try finding square root the pencil/paper way.

 

[junglejim]

Then when you feel that you're comfortable with your slide rule Mike, try using logarithmic trigonometry functions on the old slide rule. That will make you feel OLD.

Hummm - Now where did I leave my coffee cup?

 

[Phil Tarman]

If you think division is hard try finding square root the pencil/paper way.

I can't imagine doing that again!

 

[mikesim]

If you think division is hard try finding square root the pencil/paper way.

I don't think I remember how to do it manually anymore....... pfffft gone!

MIke

 

[mikesim]

Then when you feel that you're comfortable with your slide rule Mike, try using logarithmic trigonometry functions on the old slide rule. That will make you feel OLD.

Hummm - Now where did I leave my coffee cup?

I can probably still do that with a wee bit of refresher from the Post manual. We sure have been spoiled by calculators, havent we? In school we were still not allowed to use anything but a slide rule. That changed shortly after I graduated.

Mike

 

[junglejim]

When I was in school calculators were mechanical. Enter a complicated calculation, press enter and listen to the machine grind and clatter. A square root solution might take a minute or two. Keyboard array was 10 digits wide and 10 digits high (7 left of decimal point and 3 right) so 9,999,999.999 was the biggest number you could enter. I think the solution had more digits. They ran on 120v current and weighed about 30#.

My dad had one but he had me check his calculations because those machines were prone to errors (of course I wasn’t) haha

 

[ARKNT]

Thank you guys for making me feel young. I was introduced to slide rules and learned the basics but only for school, never used one in a job in real life.
Don't think I want to test myself with longhand math much at this point either.

Arknt

 

[mikesim]

When I was in school calculators were mechanical. Enter a complicated calculation, press enter and listen to the machine grind and clatter. A square root solution might take a minute or two. Keyboard array was 10 digits wide and 10 digits high (7 left of decimal point and 3 right) so 9,999,999.999 was the biggest number you could enter. I think the solution had more digits. They ran on 120v current and weighed about 30#.

My dad had one but he had me check his calculations because those machines were prone to errors (of course I wasn’t) haha

Yup, back in the day, there were adding machines (they could subtract too) and mechanical calculators. My dad had one also, a Borroughs I believe. He would let me play with it from time to time for funsies. He would take the cover off periodically and blow it out with compressed air to keep the complicated innards clean. I remember it would jam from time to time during a calculation if it got dirty inside. He kept it covered at all times unless it was in use. I remember the grinding and clattering as you say when doing a calculation. I also remember his first electronic calculator, a Commodore if I recall. We were both in awe at how silently and instantaneously it could perform a calculation.

Mike

 

[DirtFlier]

Those first hand-held digital calculators were nearly $300 when they were introduced in the 70s. Now you can buy one with more calculating power for under $10!

 

[mikesim]

Back in the day (early 80's) I bought a Hewlett-Packard HP41CV programable calculator. If I recall it was about $450. It had additional memory modules with up to 8K ram. It used RPN (reverse polish notation) to enter equations. I wrote several work specific programs that I used constantly that saved an enormous amout of time. Now a comparable TI calculator is about $20!

Mike