XT250 Adventure Touring Rack?

My Yamaha XT-250 came with a rear rack, enough to fasten a box to, but not enough to put side boxes or panniers on.

I found a plastic box on 'trademe' (New Zealands version of eBay) for about $7, which is a good start -  strong, waterproof and ugly, it holds a few things, but not quite enough.

On other bikes I could just sling a couple of soft panniers over the rear seat, but on these types of bike, the exhaust is too high, and would just melt through them.

I have a couple of great waterproof dry bags from Alpkit.com and decided to create a 'cradle' to hold the two dry bags on either side of the rear box.

Here's what I came up with:

Hand bend (with a hammer) aluminium tube frame (if it works, i'll build a steel one for strength, but aluminium is quicker to work with)

Mounted on the existing rack. Yes, it's held on with duct-tape (for now). The black part is the base for the givi plastic box

Givi plastic box mounted on the frame

The dry bags sit nicely in the 'cradle'  

Just needs a few straps to hold the dry bags on now... 

The idea is to put important and heavy things in the plastic box -  camera, netbook, water, food, tools etc.
In the dry bags I'll have clothes, sleeping bag on one side, and sleeping mat and tent (if camping) on the other.

Now I just have to hope it all holds together... I'll take some spare duct-tape just in case...

A few photos from a quick ride 'Round the Bays' in Wellington NZ, there's a couple of very short (50m) off road loops, but good practice for a first 'off road' ride

The New XT 250

Welcome. This is a my small blog, all about my travels with my Yamaha XT250 motorcycle.

I picked up a the bike a few months ago, with just over 2000k on the clock, and 5 years old. It's not hard to do the maths, this bike has averaged 33km a month. I cycle more that twice that a week on my mountain bike.

There's a number of reasons why I choose the XT250 over other options:

• I like the colour
• I like the light weight
• I like the mechanical simplicity 
• It's not over tuned and will keep going without much maintanance
• Itis effiecient, has a good range from a small tank
• It's low seat height
• It's relaxing to drive

Downsides:

• It starts to feel too lightly and wobbly over 100kph

It's not the best off road bike, it's not the best on road bike, but to me it makes the ideal light weight adventure tourer. I came to motorcycle touring from cycle touring, I'm happy going on trips with less than 10kg of gear, so I don't need a huge bike to carry it.