[gregsfc]

Really like the soft-bag, plywood or 1X idea with any kind of soft or hard bag or box. I love luggage that is cheap, inventive, useful, and easily undone. That flat-bottom rope system passes all my likes for luggage.

My first top-case choice was a garage sale, Dewalt soft tool bag with hard bottom rails; about 28" long, but not tall enough for the groceries upright. Doesn't look like the previous pics are tall enough either but very functional, useful and practical just the same and would carry the groceries, just not the way the rules call for them to be carried. My Dewalt tool bag was too long strapped to my seat and drooped down too much rear of the seat and around the sides; no operational issues with it, but just not very functional if I'd ever put any kind of weight in it. Plywood or 1X would have let that system work the way sendler has pictured it.

I just got to thinking that I believe there is something in the Vetter Challenge rules that states the luggage must be part of the body work and that no soft bag will be allowed anyway. This second thought makes me believe that my soft bag, attached to my box, will not be allowed and neither would a plywood-based soft bag, and possibly, since my hard box is strapped around the seat, it may not pass either. I'm still not going to do anything out of the ordinary to pass the grocery-bag test. I need the LL Bean bag (Bean bag; no pun intended) for my trip anyway. If I don't pass due to something stupid like a particular rider preferring a soft bag to a hard bag or the bag and box being strapped, instead of bolted or welded on, I'm not going to stress over it.

The streamlining folks are trying to push an agenda and trying to keep things equal among all the steamlined bikes, but for only slightly modified bikes, I don't see the point of forcing any kind of structural standard other than it holds the groceries w/o damaging them and the load and bike or trike being safe. I understand their point of useful, future bikes and trikes, and it is Craig's show, so he and they can do what they want, since no one else is doing any kind of similar event, but it would be nice if a regular guy, on a regular MC, could show up and be a legitimate competitor, since he or she is going to be at a disadvantage anyway being non-streamlined.

Of course it can be stated that nothing more can be learned other than what we know about necessary horsepower to accomplish the rides, but saying it doesn't make it true. An average pickup truck gets far less fuel economy than an average car, but that's no reason why folks in pickups shouldn't be able to show up a 4-wheeler fuel economy event and compete just to illustrate how all different kinds of techniques and technologies may improve fuel economy in pickups. That's my point about this 2 and 3 wheel event. It's not like MC folks have other choices with less restrictive rules that include them.

I'm not even asking for more classes of winners; just to be allowed to compete without having to spend big bucks to do it. I can still show off my bike anyway w/o passing the grocery-bag test, but I won't get a placed score if I can't, and that's a shame, because I can carry the groceries just as easily, and my bike is just as useful; past, present, or future as the streamliners in a practical, every day sense. And my bike doesn't have all the cross wind issues either. It just doesn't have quite the top speed or achievable mpg as it would if I were rich and didn't work full time and could streamline my Honda.