Product Review: Giant Loop Pronghorn Straps

 

All Rights Reserved © 2015 Thomas W. Day

A Giant Loop-supplied picture of the alleged "unbreakable fasteners." (Photo supplied by Giant Loop, Harold Cecil)
Friends say I'm unrealistically biased positively toward Giant Loop Products. Could be. I own and love several of the company's fine products: the Giant Loop Coyote Saddlebag, Dry Bag, Diablo Tank Bag, Kiger Tank Bag, and the Great Basin Dry Bag. All of that gear is fiercely waterproof, tougher than rhino skin, and brilliantly designed for backwoods motorcycling. When I received a trio of Pronghorn Straps to test, I pretty much assumed this would be another brilliantly designed product that would become an indispensible part of my travel kit. Turned out, that was pretty much a no-brainer assumption.


The three Pronghorn Strap options (Photo supplied by Giant Loop, Harold Cecil)

The first thing I felt needed to be challenged was the claim that the fasteners are "unbreakable." As a retired reliability engineer, I am compelled to test any such claim because I absolutely do not believe such stuff. In the interests of truth and the American Way, I will admit that I received these straps as "media samples," so I had no money invested in the following abuse/tests. Likewise, earlier in my career--when I was paid to abuse/test industrial electronics, music equipment, professional audio equipment, medical devices, software, firmware, and hardware--I did not pay for that equipment, either. Fair is fair.
Practically speaking, what kind of abuse would something like these straps and their buckle expect to experience? First, serious abrasion and tension stress under a variety of temperatures. Second, impact damage from crashes within the same range of temperatures. (For example, 0^oC to 40^oC.) Finally, an outright attempt to find the breaking point of the strap or buckle, whichever comes first would be typical test engineering experiments. I decided that I would limit my tests to semi-destructive because I wanted to long-term test the straps on our RV excursion during the winter of 2013-14. First, I measured the strap's total pre-test length for a distortion/elasticity baseline (32.1cm).

So, I started with simple abuse. I clamped one of the red straps (the size I thought I was most unlikely to use) to my vise and whaled away with my 4 pound sledge at the buckle and strap for a bit. The buckle showed abrasion signs of abuse afterwards, but it didn't break. The strap looked a bit scratched up, but it didn't appear to be weakened, either. So, I froze (at -5^oC) the same strap in my basement storage freezer for a few days while leaving it under tension with an expansion clamp extended far enough that the buckle distorted significantly. After leaving it frozen for a few days, I pulled it out and gave the clamp a few more squeezes which stretched the buckle and strap even more, but didn't break it. Next, I tossed the strap into my wife's food dehydrator (80^oC) and left it for a week while she dried pears on the other three trays. (Yeah, I know. I probably poisoned us with the plastic out-gassing. At our age, poisons will have to be pretty aggressive to matter much.) Out of the dryer, I put the strap back into the clamp and stretched it to 125% of it's relaxed length and left it in the clamp for a day. That ended the bench testing phase of my procedure. After that abuse, the 20^oC resting length of the strap was 32.23cm, 101% of it's original length. The buckle retained it's original shape, compared to my untested copies. The strap didn't even retain the clamped form and appeared to be returning to the packaged shape after a few days on the bench.

A month later, I used two of the red straps to secure my Giant Loop Dry Bag to my WR250's tail rack for a camping trip along the St. Croix. (So much for my ability to guess which size strap I'd use most often.) One of the two straps was the one I'd abused in my earlier tests. I'd imagined that this trip would be pretty benign because the fall had been wet and I didn't plan on going off-road much between the Cities and Two Harbors, but once I got out of town I ended up letting my GPS guide me northward with the instruction that I waned to avoid freeways, major highways, toll roads with a high preference for dirt roads and "ferries" (in case I ever get a chance to cross the St. Croix on one). Pretty soon, I was bouncing along on a heavily farm-equipment-rutted road enjoying the hell out of my all-time favorite motorcycle. 350 miles later, I was still south of Duluth by 50 miles and looking for a place to hang my hammock for the night. As either a testament to my faith in Giant Loop products or my simplemindedness, I hadn't check my load once in the last 250 miles. It was all there, though. Ten minutes later, I was swinging between two trees reading my eBook with the sound of the river in the background, mosquitoes in the foreground, and birds and bats in between until the light failed and I fell asleep.

A few weeks later, I used five of the Pronghorns to secure bicycles,hardware, and the WR250X to my customized Harbor Freight trailer and we headed south for our first winter in retirement. Somewhere around 6,000 miles into the trip, weather, vibration, and metal fatigue caused one of the brackets I'd used to hold a bicycle in place snapped and a blue Pronghorn strap between the bike ramp and the bicycle's lower frame was all that kept my mountain bike from being abandoned on the highway in New Mexico. I didn't discover the failure until we stopped for the night.

I started collecting information for this review in 2013 and, somehow, the final article ended up sitting in my computer for three years after any formal "testing" ended. I regret that I didn't stay on this because the Pronghorn straps have more than exceeded my expectations and have lived up to their "unbreakable" claim, at least with any semi-normal use. I love 'em.

Product Review: Giant Loop Kiger Tank Bag

All Rights Reserved © 2015 Thomas W. Day

One of the most hostile reviews I've ever written and had published was of my frustrating experience with my Wolfman Enduro Bag. As much as I've hated that damn thing, I didn't find a suitable replacement for a V-Strom tank bag until Giant Loop came out with the Kiger. To sum up this review in one sentance, everything I had come to dislike about the Wolfman bag is a non-issue on the Kiger.

First, even with the rain cover, the Wolfman (and practically every other enduro-style tank bag) isn't particularly water-resistant. The first day I installed my Kiger I taught a Basic Rider Course at Century College where, about two hours from the end of the range-portion of the course, we were hit with a gully-washer. I had my V-Strom covered, but I had to pull the cover because the wind was so strong the bike was rocking hard enough I thought it might topple off of the centerstand. I hadn't double-protected my stuff with the Kiger's optional dry bag and the storm hit so quickly I didn't have time to latch one of the bag's buckles. 40mph-plus winds blew the rain parallel to the ground for a half-hour, blowing over half of our motorcycles, flooding the drains, and drenching everyone and everything; except the stuff inside of my Kiger tank bag. At least three inches of rain fell in that short cloudburst and none of it, not one drop, made it into my tank bag. First test, passed.

The Kiger and my V-Strom on an urban "adventure" during the Minneapolis Art-a-Whirl.

The next big issue I had with the Wolfman Enduro was stability. The Wolfman bag's "laminated foam sides" quickly turned to saggy pillows that took up space in the bag while providing ziltch for support. Initially, the Wolfman Enduro bag was the only substantial-sized bag I could find that was narrow enough to stay out of my way when steering, but when the foam sides failed so went the steering clearance. The Kiger's zipperless-clamshell design and materials make the bag almost rigid. The zipper-less, clamshell lid defines the top portion of the bag's structure and the foam-reinforced 22-ounce vinyl-coated polyester foundation holds the overall shape. The 4-point security system keeps it all exactly where I want it. The zipper attachment to the harness makes the bag easy to swing aside for a gas fill and the whole thing (except the harness) comes off easily so you take the bag with you. The Kiger is a 9 liter bag--rear 9.5″ tall, front 6″ tall, 8″ wide, 12″ long--which is large enough for a bike cover, gloves, boot covers, some tools, with space left over for stuff in the interior mesh pocket.

I'm still unclear on how this works, but it does. The clear vinyl map pocket is touchscreen-friendly; even when I'm wearing my Aerostich Deerskin gauntlets. This is a big deal, since I'm cheap and my Garmin GPS is a long ways from waterproof. There is a water-tight route for a power cord (USB on mine) into the map pocket, so running out of juice can be avoided.

Everything I wanted for this bit of travel storage was provided by Giant Loop's Kiger. It's a great bag and one that I fully expect to outlive my V-Strom and end up on whatever my next bike turns out to be. As always, the best place to buy Giant Loop products is directly from the company's website: https://giantloopmoto.com/.

Product Review: Giant Loop Coyote Saddlebag, Dry Bag, & Diablo Tank Bag

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

The left side view of the whole caboodle packed and ready for a camping trip to Wisconsin.

After a moto-camping trip to Canada, I realized that my small bike luggage had a few faults. My Motofizz "camping seat bag" (reviewed in August 2008) is a great commuter packer, but it is far from watertight. Four days of rain in the morning and 100F+ muggy afternoons and my gear smelled like a boy's gym and made my skin crawl with bacteria when I went for a "fresh change." My 15 year old Eclipse P-38 saddle bags were pretty leaky when i bought them, but now they provide as much weather protection as a fishing net. It was time to step up to something more serious.

MMM has reviewed Giant Loop gear before (Giant Loop Great Basin Bag and Fandango Tank Bag, Winter 2010 the Giant Loop Saddlebag, June 2008) and  the consensus was always positive. So, I went for the whole shootin' match with the company's new Coyote Saddlebag and Dry Bag and the Diablo Tank Bag. If you've ever used canoe or kayaking dry bags, you're already familiar with the construction materials Giant Loop uses on this series of products. The shell of all three of these bags is made from Giant Loop's Bomb Shell™ “trucker’s tarp.” This is tough, waterproof stuff and the abrasion points at the bottom of the tank bag and the bottom and leading edge of the Coyote Saddlebag are reinforced with 1050 Nylon Ballistic Cordura™. The zippers are heavy duty and, the full length zipper on the Saddlebag and the Diablo are waterproof and protected by storm flaps. The Dry Bag seals up with a side-release buckle, canoe bag-style.

The exceptionally hip sleeping bag stuff sack and the Coyote Saddlebag's interior compression bindings.

 
The Coyote Dry Bag neatly straps to either the front or back of the Saddlebag and is big enough for both my sleeping bag and the pad with extra space for camp shoes and light clothing. The Saddlebag is shipped with three really heavy duty "contoured" stuff sacks, including one that is pre-curved to fit  The stuff sacks and the full length zipper makes it possible to get to any of your gear without having to remove the stuff you don't need at the moment.
 

The Diablo stuffed with rain gear, wheel lock, flashlight, cold weather gloves, air guage, tools, and camping utensils.

The Diablo has a rear divider for immediate stuff and a water-tight window that you feed from inside the bag through a zipper in the lid's mesh backing. This window setup is making me reconsider my Streetpilot GPS setup for the first time since 2004. You could use any battery-powered GPS protected inside this bag, including a multi-function phone; no need for a motorcycle-specific and over-priced waterproof unit. The bag unzips from the base to allow removal and incredibly easy access to the gas cap. This feature, alone, puts the Diablo in the stratosphere of  "best ever" tank bags. A 4-liter tank bag may seem too small for practical use, but there isn't much of a choice on a small dirt bike or sport bike. 8 1/4" x 12" isn't a lot of real estate, but it's enough for compact gear you need to get to in a hurry while still being able to maneuver your bike without steering-lock restriction.

The right side view of the small bike Giant Loop Coyote camping rig.

In real-world use, this combination of gear is a giant improvement over my old rig. Packing light, I had a little room to spare after stuffing all of my camping gear and four days of clothing and snacks into the three bags. The first evening out, I was hammered with a monster downpour and my gear and clothing was as dry as when I packed it. I spent one night on a mid-August trip sleeping on a picnic table where I only used the gear stored in the Diablo and the Dry Bag for a short, marginally legal night's sleep. The convenience and access to my stuff, without having to load and unload everything I'd packed, allowed me to spend a night for free and stay off of the road when the hoofed rats came out when a planned campsite was closed due to flooding. 

A deal, for me, with my WR's luggage, is the height and mounting restrictions. I'm old, inflexible, beat up, and short. My WR is young, nimble, and taller than me. My old camping rig often snagged a boot as I swung my leg over the tailbag and was inclined to send me and the bike crashing to the ground at particularly awkward moments. My Wolfman Enduro tankbag pushed my seat room back into the tailbag and saddlebags, which increased the odds that I'd land in a heap when getting on or off of the bike. One reason I ended up mounting the Dry Bag at the front of the Saddlebag is that kept the overall height of the rig low. That mounting position keeps the weight more centered, too.

Packing into the bug-infested trails of Wisconsin.

As in any motorcycle packing situation, it's important to keep the weight as low and centered as possible. You want to pack the heavy stuff at the bottom of the Saddlebag and keep the weight evenly distributed. This probably isn't a big deal on a Triumph Thruxton, but on a 275 pound dirt bike, maneuvering through a twisty trail packed weight matters. When that weight is unstable, it's an even bigger deal. The attachment system Giant Loop uses on these three bags is flawlessly stable. It stays in place banging through rough terrain, in high winds and torrential rain, and for long distances.I will admit that the Coyote Saddlebag is a little weird looking, but it is exactly what I needed for my WR's touring rig and, altogether, this setup is better than my wildest dreams for my mini-touring bike..

• http://www.giantloopmoto.com/products/coyote-saddlebag
• http://www.giantloopmoto.com/products/coyote-dry-bag
• http://www.giantloopmoto.com/collections/giant-loop-gear-collection/products/diablo-tank-bag

POSTSCRIPT: I have had my Giant Loop gear for three years, now. There isn't much more to say about the stuff except that is has worn incredibly well, is still water-tight, and the more I use it the more I like it. If you've followed my grumpy career, you know that is saying a lot. The zippers still work and are actually slightly easier to use than they were the day I loaded up the WR and headed out for my first weekend camping trip. Unbelievably, the map window on the Diablo is still crystal clear and it has seen almost 20,000 miles of use and abuse on the WR, including being strapped to the tank all last winter behind our RV. 

I'm not ashamed to admit that the Dry Bag has seen use both on the WR and my V-Strom but in the canoe and kayak. It is an amazing product and has outlived two REI dry bags and survived dozens of canoe trips loaded with boating camping gear.

Nothing I can say will adequately describe how much I like the Coyote Saddlebag. It is simply the ultimate dirt bike camping bag. Nothing else even comes close.

Want It Hard or Soft?

This is a really well considered discussion of bike luggage: Do you want it hard or soft? (your motorcycle luggage, that is). I'm a fan of both, hard and soft for exactly the reasons everyone interviewed in this article listed: hard for the big bike and security ("hard" for me is my GIVI rig on the DL) and soft on the WR and when I'm worried about falling down a lot.

Yeah, I know. I should always ride with soft luggage if "falling down a lot" is the criteria. However, I have fallen down pretty hard with the GIVI stuff on the bike and it held up well. I was smacked by a douchebag in a low rider in North Dakota at a filling station stop and the GIVI's kept me from being smashed against the pump. They are really water-tight and tough. I can squeeze a lot of crap into the side cases, if I'm dedicated to the proposition.

On the other hand, the Giant Loop gear on my WR holds about as much stuff a lot closer and lower on the bike with a fraction of the total container weight (especially considering the GIVI frame mounts). The Giant Loop stuff is water-tight, tough as metal, incredibly convenient, very removable with excellent access to the innards without having to remove it all from the bike, and looks cool. The zippers are waterproof and the rain flaps close with magnetic "latches."

I'm with the folks in this article. Hard or soft depends on the ride, the bike, and the rider. I'm both hard and soft. For around town commuting, I have a cheap sealed tail case on the V-Strom ($39.99 from J.C. Whitney) and a Motofizz small tail bag on the WR. Neither of these, especially the Motofizz, qualifies as "waterproof," but I'm not often commuting on the road long enough to worry about it.