Let’s start with a short recap.
While running with just the holsters for the LAB2V I ran out of talent on a left hander and sideswiped a barbed wire fence, ripping the two inner bag hold down straps from their sewn in place on the holster.
You can read about that here: https://aufroad.com/fixing-what-broke-and-updates/.
Once home I got a hold of Mosko Moto explained what happened and the short answer is that they said, “Ship it and we’ll fix it!“. Everything was looking good. So I thought.
While that could have been the end of the story, it wasn’t. Almost a month later they replied with
This was an incredibly lame ass response as this is from the company who made the item, not knowing there was PE Board in there and that they didn’t have the tools to do that. PE Board is a hard plastic. I’m guessing it’s 1/8 thick. I vented my frustration with the company at https://aufroad.com/updates-on-mosko-moto/
So it was on me to fix my straps. I first bought some 1″ strap material on Amazon, I bought a type I thought would work well. We used to use it in mountaineering to tie around boulders and repel from. Strong stuff. Then I went down to a local shoe tailor shop. One guy. English as a second language. Hard working, but also had all the tools. Sewing soles on shoes is kind of like sewing through 1/8″ PE Board. I gave him detailed instructions, thought he understood, and a month later I had my bags fixed!
So I thought.
He managed to attach the straps, but got the location swapped for the two. Nothing I couldn’t live with.I wrote about that at https://aufroad.com/update-2-on-my-mosko-moto-reckless-80/
I was ready to go ride again! So I thought.
The first time I packed everything up in earnest and put a little tug on that strap it pulled right out. Apparently, my shoe guy, with all his tools that could sew through anything decided it was easier to not and just sewed next to the PE Board!
Next, I took it the bags down to another local shoe guy. I showed him what this guy did, how I didn’t want that and he fully understood (I think) what I really wanted. There was one problem – he was at least a month behind in back orders! So that pretty much gets us to where we are today.
I wanted to secure the straps so that they’ll never pull out with normal use. I bought thinner (blue) strap material from Amazon that my wife could sew on her machine.
I cut the old ones off at the root. I decided to leave all of his stitching as it was. My general plan was to somehow sandwich the straps between a front and back plate. I was thinking 1/2″ aluminum would give me the strength. Thelocal ACE was out of 1/2 and so it was 3/4″. I needed two different “sandwiches”. One that captured one strap on the rear and one that captured 2 straps that are on the front. The front has that “G” buckle loop for the 2nd strap.
You can see in my plans I was thinking of connecting the two with rivets. I marked and drilled holes in plates for the front and rear, test fitted rivets and it’s looking good. I had stacked both plates behind that blue tape.
I had my wife sew kind of an end to each of the straps so they couldn’t pull through. I also had the idea that I was going to drill through the straps too. Here’s the general idea.
I then clamped it all down, did a final test fit and everything looked good to go. You can see where my drilled holes are not perfectly lined up in a row. It’s the kind of shitty ass garage work I do, or maybe it’s so that the holes would go through different rows of strap – making it even more strongerer! Yeah, that’s it!
I was going to start the pop riveting but needed access to the back as well. Pop rivets needed about 1/2 in shank but then the G Loop strap was double thick so it might have needed more. I was going to use a through bolt or two to temporarily hold it together. That’s about when I decided to skip the rivets and just use bolts. I grabbed a bunch of stainless M4 and matching stainless nylocs. You can see the remnants of the orange strap that I cut off and burned.
I drilled and attached both sides. Everything looked good. I could always pull one bolt out at a time and replace it with a pop rivet but the bolts were looking good.
I put it all back together, mounted it on the bike and I’m happy to see there’s absolutely no clearance issues in the front or the back. That’s a good 3 inches of clearance.
As for the back, it has a huge amount of clearance as the subframe tank isn’t even close.
With everything mounted and looking good, I cut the straps to where I wanted the length and then had the wife sew nifty little velcro straps just like the originals.
In the end, it’s not pretty but it get;s the job done. I might have lost a little in volume but it’s minimal. These straps are never coming lose – at least from regular use.
I might replace the bolts with cleaner looking pop rivets, or I might not. We shall see. I liked the colored orange straps as I wanted to show my scars, but the blue also fits in just right.
Oh, speaking of scars. Kyle (https://www.instagram.com/kylelovesscars/), who rode a Honda XR 650 with me in LAB2V, sent me a listing of a 690 down south, low miles, basically stock. Kind of what I started out with. The next day I saw this post come up on ADV… https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/2015-ktm-690-enduro-5500.1646795/ Mileage like mine but also with all the mods I have done! AND HE BOUGHT IT! How cool is that?
Welcome to the Tribe, Kyle! I am so excited for you!
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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- The NORCAL BDR (part 3) - October 29, 2024