Laptops and Busa's....

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Warchild

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Ever since I saw the first Pelican Case mounted on a LD bike many, many years ago, I admit I just shook my head. "What an eyesore" I thought to myself.

Then, several years later, I finally was forced to carry a laptop on a trip. Ack! The silly-a$$ laptop bag consumed the vast majority of the Givi V46 topcase (this was before the slim neoprene bags were widely available.)

Now I find I have to carry a laptop to both Santa Ana and Spokane, as I am a Scorer at both places. No big deal, right?

Well... it is if you are riding a Hayabusa with tiny Givi bags. The hefty-a$$ Dell Inspiron ain't going in any existing luggage. Damn.

So.... finally, it has happened, it has come to this.... I have become one of those Pelican dudes.....

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right_side.jpg


The Pelican case resides on the SW-Motech rack where the 1-gal insulated water jug used to reside, so the latter is relocated down to the left pillion footpeg:

left_front_qtr.jpg


You may not be able to tell from the photos, but this is actually one of the smaller Pelican cases.... Model 1500. The Dell is still a tight fit.. only about a 1.5" spare room on all sides.

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The floor of the Pelican Case is sandwiched between two 3/16" aluminum plates. Passing through the plates are three beefy 12mm bolts, and tension locknuts are run all the way up the bolts to the very bottom of the outside aluminum plate. The tension locknuts are then encased in a short segment of thick rubber heater hose. The remaining bolt shaft had its threads ground down and polished smooth. Then, a hole was drilled in each bolt shaft so that it can receive a bailing wire-style cotter pin to facilitate quick removal/installation. As a practical matter, I will probably replace one of these pins with an appropriately small combination lock when on trips:

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Using this arraignment, the Pelican case stands off from the SW-Motech rack, and thus the transfer of harmonic vibration to the case is almost eliminated! B)

When all is said and done, the Pelican case actually doesn't look too bad on the bike. I want to test it out on a nice long high-speed run, but the Hayabusa is actually down at the moment for a toasted rear shock. :(

high_rt_qtr.jpg


 
Maybe you could mount a small spoiler on top of the Pelican case to give it a bit of ground-effects traction. :lol:

But seriously, very nice clean install. Personally, I'm just moving from the behemoth Dimension to a netbook.

 
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Nice job Dale. You need one of these new Asus Netbooks - kicks major buttass and hardly takes any room in the Givi. Unless, you just had a latent need for a Pelican :)

Now to the point - What kind of seat is that on your Busa? Buddy up here is looking for some comfort on his and is looking at Corbin's. I see Russell is making them as well.

 
FINALLY...a farkle I did BEFORE Warchild. Welcome to the Tough Club. Personally, I think it looks butch, er, that is, cool.
I kinda looked askance at it initially, but it's starting to grow on me.... it's a faily clean install.

I need to get a hold of Alex and see if he'll cut me up some black reflective decals to place on the rearward face of the case.

 
It blends in with all the other gear fine. Might stick out if it were the only extra mounted on the bike.

 
Well, even though the rear shock isn't working worth a rat's ass anymore, I was able to take the K8 out on a 600-mile juant on Saturday, with the Dell Insprion in the Pelican case with the help of some high-density foam from a local craft store. Outcome was more than one could hope for: the case rode fine, no issues at all. Excellent....

Gotta do something about the shock, though... really don't want to take the bike anywhere until it's replaced.

And since the bike has to stay put for a while... I FINALLY got started on another K8 project that is long, LONG overdue: dumping that POS conventional master cylinder with a proper Brembro Radial Master Cylinder. And since I went all-out for this awesome piece of hardware, I continued the $$$-insanity by scoring a god-like Rizoma brake reservoir to go with it...

install1.JPG


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Still need to hook up the brake switch and bleed the radial cylinder.... can't wait to test this baby out, this oughta be good....
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As the owner of a Netbook I can honestly say this is a great traveling laptop, but a subpar rally laptop. All the things that make it great for road trips make it bad for rallies essentially. The screen (and screen resolution) are too small to really see the 'big picture' and the tiny keyboard makes it hard for quick entry. Don't get me wrong, I love my Dell Mini9, but they are just too small to be a rally laptop.

They are great travel laptops however. A friend is borrowing mine while he and a buddy take a two week long bike trip right now, and he can't thank me enough.

Of course because of its tiny size, it will more than likely be coming with me on the IBR as a backup laptop.

 
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