Saddle bag care, Vikingbags.com and Motorcyclehouse.com

Guest post by Kiara Wilson

Repairing Motorcycle Saddlebags

Saddlebags are one of the best tools for a biker. They hold all your stuff safely locked inside, despite the bumpy roads or the tough terrains you take. Despite the thick leather body and steel frames support, motorcycle bags are prone to damage with time. Sagged and cracked bags are one of the commonest problems. Since the issue is frequent, buying new bags or giving the worn ones for repair every time is not a solution. Therefore, knowing some 'do it yourself' solutions come very handy here. Here are some simple tips to repair your motorcycle saddlebags:

·        Retaining Color: Most of the saddlebags are made of genuine or synthetic leather and are black. With prolonged exposure to heat and sunlight, they may lose their original shade. To counter this fading, take good quality leather oil and mix it with the black leather dye. Apply the mixture uniformly or only to the damaged part and let it dry for a whole day, preferably in the shade. Avoid sunlight exposure.
·        Filling the Cracks: The motorcycle bags often develop cracks, peels, or small holes, which may become larger if you do not take proper care. If your saddlebag has any of these problems, get plastic glue. You can easily find this glue in a hardware shop. Fill the crack or the hole with the glue and let it dry for 24 hours for the best results.
·        Bigger Holes: We usually avoid repairing the small holes. Within little time, these holes get bigger and worse. Here, for big holes, apply black tape instead of glue. Put it on the inner side of the damaged saddlebags so that it is not visible from outside. This keeps the bag's look intact. For extra protection, you can apply a coat of plastic glue later on.
·        Covering the Bag: In case your saddlebags need repair at more than one place, putting on a black tape is not a durable solution. It can even impart a dull look to your bags. To solve the issue, you may put plastic polystyrene sheets over the bag's body and cover your entire bag with a layer of much thicker glue. With a proper application of sheets and glue, no one will be able to make out that extra sheet on the bag. It appears brand new. If possible, take the bag off of the bike and after covering it with the sheet, put some weight on it so that it sticks properly to the saddlebags' body. If you are looking for a high quality set of saddlebags for your bike and want to get rid of maintenance kind of stuff, then vikingbags.com would be the best and safe option.

Here are a couple of examples of Viking Bags...

Viking Bags... Finally a sweet solo bag for my ride that didn't kill the clean look that I like on my Sporty.

Without hard bags, or standard leather saddle bags, I've always struggled for some storage on my ride. I can't really even strap much to my handle bars because of the position of my speedometer. I've always wanted to maintain a clean look that standard saddle bags just don't accomplish for me. My quest to find a clean look with a little extra storage has finally arrived. I found this sweet solo bag through http://www.motorcyclehouse.com/, which is the parent company for http://www.vikingbags.com/.
The shipping was standard, and my saddle bag arrived quite timely as I had expected. I was able to install the bag in about only 10 minutes tops. This bag has really nice rugged black leather, adequate closure flaps, and has quick easy access clip type buckles that are hidden by the traditional look buckles, which is really a bonus. Best of all , I now have somewhere to put the things that I've always had to leave behind, or put in my pockets weighing me down, and it is really low profile and clean looking. I ask myself, where have you been all my life?!?!

I couldn't be more stoked about this new bag!

To show how low profile and clean looking this is, I've attached a few pictures below of my ride with the new side solo bag installed.

New paint

                Ghost flames on Copper Pearl racing stripe.

H.A.

Puzzled

Some of what I got, and some of what I did over Christmas break.

Picture Perect.