A shortened version of this review appeared in the February 2022 issue of BMW Owners News.
When I bought my used 2015 R 1200 GS in early 2021, it came to me from California with nothing on it other than a Nav V unit and an AltRider heat shield on the muffler. The previous owner said he simply toured with a large duffel strapped to the passenger seat.
It’s been a long time since I owned a BMW without panniers, so I found myself in a bit of a pickle when it came to choosing between hard or soft panniers. I’ve been using a single Giant Loop Round-the-World soft pannier on my Indian FTR1200S for nearly two years, and have to say I love its look and versatility. It’s waterproof, tough and stylish—and even the Indian cruiser folks get a little jealous of its cavernous capacity in the face of their tiny faux leather or hard cases.
My GS would be my touring bike, though, and because I rarely ride off-road—and do my best to avoid anything truly gnarly—I also considered hard cases. I wasn’t worried about getting a leg trapped between a stump or rock and the bottom of a hard case, which could cause injury. What I needed was something sturdy and waterproof, and let’s face it—you just can’t put your awesome bumper sticker collection on a soft pannier. As a touring rider, I have some obligation to provide amusing and witty reading material to the public!
My last GS (2005 R 1200) had Jesse panniers on it and I liked them more than the bike’s original stock BMW Vario cases, but they were getting old and beat up and I was starting to have trouble getting them to close on the first try. Because they were a discontinued model, I couldn’t find the appropriate parts to install them on my new bike, and getting them repaired or updated by Jesse Luggage didn’t seem to be an option, since nobody from the company ever returned my emails or phone calls. (I understand there was a change in management around the time I was looking, so it’s quite possible my communication attempts simply got lost in the administrative shuffle of the changeover in ownership.)
In the last 10 years, the availability of aluminum panniers for adventure bikes has simply exploded. It seems as if every company out there makes a set, and that’s not even counting the cheap Chinese knock-offs you can get on eBay if you’re brave. BMW makes them, of course, and so do Happy Trail, Hepco & Becker, SW-MOTECH, Jesse Luggage, Touratech, GIVI, Wunderlich and others. I’ve seen many of these on other motorcycles and they’re all fairly similar looking—welded seams and plastic corner caps dominate, though there are slight variations.
In the end, I went with Touratech for two simple reasons: I’ve used a lot of Touratech products on my motorcycles and find them to be of the highest quality, not to mention Touratech’s legendary customer service, and I could lay my hands on a set almost immediately. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing pandemic, not only have some supply lines been disrupted, affecting manufacturing, but shipping has gotten less reliable over the last year and I needed to make sure I had panniers on my bike before I set out for the National Rally in Great Falls, Montana.
Choosing the right Touratech hard pannier for your bike comes down to their three lines: Zega Mundo, Zega Pro and Zega EVO/EVO X. Mundos are for some older bikes; Pros for more recent ones and EVO/EVO X for the newest models. With the EVO/EVO X system, the difference is in the two individual cases you receive. For the EVO kit, your two cases will look exactly the same, but have slightly different capacities (31/38 or 38/45 liters). The smaller of the two cases goes on the side with your muffler, and the mounting rack on that side cuts a straight line from top to bottom. The advantage to the EVO is consistency; even though one case is slightly smaller, it allows more efficient packing and the use of rectangular inner bags.
The upside of the EVO set is with two straight mounting racks, you have the most flexibility if you find yourself switching between hard and soft panniers for various applications—and indeed I know several riders who use hard panniers for everyday riding and road touring and switch to soft panniers for off-road travels, like tackling one of the many Backcountry Discovery Routes (BDR). (I mention this specifically because Touratech USA is a major supporter of the BDR .) The straight racks of the EVO system will give you the easiest support for soft panniers, whether or not they require their own adapter plates to mount to the racks (for items from companies like Giant Loop and Mosko Moto) or are simply throw-over panniers.
The EVO X panniers are a bit of a compromise, comparatively. What you gain in matching capacity, you lose in flexibility should you be a rider who switches back and forth among luggage sets. With the EVO X, the exhaust side pannier is angled, as is its mounting rack. This setup sits closer to the motorcycle and gives equal capacity on both sides; Touratech has 38/38 (which is what I have) and 45/45-liter pannier sets. The exhaust-side EVO X case is wider at the top than it is at the bottom, though its sides are straight with an angled slant about halfway up the inboard side of the case (meaning it is not tapered from bottom to top). The non-exhaust side case is actually an EVO case. (It is a standard cuboid shape—and yes, I had to look that up. Cuboid is to rectangle what cube is to square, so now we’ve both learned something.) In practical operation, what I’ve found is the EVO X is better suited to short/wide items rather than tall ones—like backpacks. More on that in a moment.
Using the Touratech EVO/EVO X Pannier System starts with installing the mounting rack, and installing the mounting rack was a breeze—with one caveat. BMW has kindly included four drop-through mounting locations suitable for a wide variety of OEM and aftermarket luggage, and as you would expect, Touratech’s mounting brackets fit perfectly into these openings and bolt in securely. The lower arm of the mounting racks attach to the passenger foot peg brackets and Touratech includes flat, U-shaped aluminum spacers to keep the foot peg bracket properly aligned (these spacers go on the front of the brackets, while the mounting rack’s arms go on the rear of the brackets).
The left (non-exhaust) side of the mounting rack went right on with no fuss at all, but because it’s me, the right (exhaust) side got sideways when it came time to get the foot peg bracket bolts loosened. I referred to Touratech USA’s expertly made and informative installation video just to make sure I wasn’t making any mistakes—I wasn’t—but I did not have the same ease of removing the bolts as Ian from Touratech did. I also discovered there isn’t much clearance between the bottom of the foot peg bracket and the top of the muffler, and as I was doing this install at home, I lacked the proper tools to remove the muffler. Stuck with half my mounting racks installed, I called a nearby friend to enlist his assistance. With the bike up on the lift in his garage, we were able to remove the muffler and get at the foot peg bracket bolts, which were stuck fast, most likely due to six years of heat cycles thanks to the nearby muffler. We reassembled everything with a little anti-seize and I torqued the fasteners properly when I got home, because that’s also who I am.
With both mounting racks finally firmly affixed to the motorcycle, I mounted the cases and went for a test ride. The cases themselves are light, lighter than I thought they would be, actually. The Jesse cases on my other GS easily weighed twice as much, but one advantage they had over the EVOs is a tapered lid. Getting on and off the bike is where I find one of the two real difficulties I have with the Touratech cases. Even with my bike’s ESA set to single rider, I find I often kick the leading edge of the case when getting on or off, as well as dragging my foot across the top of the exhaust-side case. The handy rubber handles on top of each case (though slightly recessed) occasionally catch my boot as well, so as a result, I pay close attention to my right foot when transitioning from the ground to the saddle and vice-versa. When I utilize the “cowboy mount” (left foot on the peg, right leg over), this isn’t a problem, but I only tend to mount like that when the bike is loaded with a duffel bag across the passenger seat.
For my trip to Great Falls—a 5,500-mile round trip the way I made it—I knew I wanted to keep my load as light as possible, but a trip of that scale still requires certain necessities. Into the right-side case went my road kit: tool roll, tire plugging kit, air pump, first aid kit, GS-911. I also put my rain gear and some photography supplies in there, including a full-size tripod that conveniently folds down short enough to fit from corner to corner. In the left case went my electronics, all held in a backpack: 15-inch laptop, audio and video recording devices, and all the chargers, cables, adapters, memory cards and external hard drives I might need. Along with the backpack were a half-cover for the bike, spare gloves and my layers—a flannel shirt and a sweatshirt. Both cases had a little extra room for anything I picked up along the way; by the time I reached Great Falls, the right-side case was completely full.
NOTE: The rest of my gear went into a tank bag (hand sanitizer, face masks, camera, EZPass transponder, National Park Eagle Pass, pens, notebook, Ziploc bag for receipts), top case (water, snacks, hats, another camera, more spare gloves, a couple of bandannas) and duffel bag (clothing, toiletries). After exploring Wyoming for a couple of days following the rally, I ended up mailing a lot of that stuff home ahead of me simply to lighten the load; the box included all the random stuff I gathered or bought at the rally.) I highly recommend this method of creating room and keeping your load manageable—just stop off at a post office, grab a Priority Mail box and send home what you don’t need for the rest of the trip!
From another perspective, the EVO/EVO X combination can hold about four paper bags of groceries, provided you have the patience to situate them carefully. Be sure not to put any fridge or freezer items in the exhaust-side case; even with an exhaust extender properly affixed, a decent amount of heat gets transferred to the upper part of the case on the exhaust side. Not so much that you’ll ever need to worry about it with motorcycle gear, but nobody wants their ice cream to melt on the ride home from the grocery store.
The construction of the EVO panniers is top-notch; all the aluminum was cleanly bent and the welds were excellent. I have only dropped the bike once, on the right side, and it was a no-speed drop, so it didn’t result in any damage. I have heard cuboid cases such as these tend to leak at the corners after a few drops, but certainly that is not the case with mine and they are so far completely waterproof. Though the corners are plastic, they appear to be sturdy and do not leak. Inside, each lid has a corner attachment allowing straps or a net to hold small or flat items inside the lid; I used a few tie-down straps liberated from my local BMW Motorrad dealer (with their permission, of course) for this purpose and they’re quite handy for small or light things you don’t want falling to the bottom of the pannier. Touratech sells a net insert for this purpose, but I haven’t purchased a pair of them yet.
The lid latches function smoothly and consistently, and I love being able to open the lids from the front or rear or indeed even remove the lid completely. I learned from experience the safety strap on the inside of the case will keep the lid from flying off at highway speeds should you neglect to properly close the lid, but it would be to your benefit to ensure your safety straps are always in place. They are not permanently mounted and can be removed, so it’s possible to lose a lid if you’re not careful. The latch locks are a little fiddly, but as the keys lose their sharp edges and you get used to the awkward angle of the downward-facing locks, they get a bit easier to use. It’s easiest if you take a moment to bend over and watch the key go in, but sometimes I’m in a hurry and already have my helmet on, which makes bending over that far a bit awkward. After my highway incident, I keep the front lid latches locked and access the contents from the rear.
My other difficulty with the EVO panniers is the mount latching mechanisms, and this is something I’ve continued to struggle with since putting the set on my bike. Despite taking my time every time and even calling Touratech USA for guidance, I still have difficulty taking the cases off the bike. (They informed me I’m doing it correctly, but seemed to imply my difficulty in this regard is uncommon.) They go on just fine, and I’ve found that holding the latch handle all the way open helps a bit when removing them, but still, it’s a struggle every time I try to take them off. The way I’ve found that works best for me is to put the bike on the center stand and just wiggle and grunt until the case finally pops off. One of the rubber pads cushioning the latching mechanism has come off, no doubt due to my difficulties here, but I was able to reaffix it with the help of a little Gorilla Glue. This might not bother most other riders, but unfortunately the space where I store my bikes is tight, and removing the left-side case is necessary so I can get around in the space and take the other bike out without having to move the GS outside first.
Overall, I am supremely pleased with the Touratech EVO/EVO X pannier system and would recommend it to anybody looking for a hard case solution for their GS or other adventure motorcycles. Mounting and using them is straightforward, and even though I have some small difficulties, these are really my own issues and certainly not a problem with the cases themselves.
The Zega EVO/EVO X Pannier System is available for the BMW R 1200/1250 GS/GSA and F 750/850 GS; Honda Africa Twin (CRF1100L); KTM 790/890, 1090, 1190 and 1290; Triumph Tiger 900; and Yamaha Ténéré 700. MSRP for a full set—mounting rack and two panniers—range from $1,449 to $1,999. Individual cases start at $300, and two matching top cases are available (25/38 liters, $600; 72 liters, $625-675 depending on finish). All panniers are available anodized in silver or black. EVO X kits include an exhaust extension. For more information, visit touratech-usa.com or call 800.491.2926. (Models, prices and availability may change by the time you read this.)
