Aprilia Falco Hard/Soft Luggage

Here's some (poor) pictures of the Aprilia luggage mounted on my Falco. The saddlebags are expandable Aprilia bags. The top bag on the tail is an Eclipse pack, mounted using straps and racks from the Aprilia kit.

The lightweight racks mount at the passenger grab handle, the passenger footpeg bracket, and the exhaust canister mount. Spacers are provided so the racks only contact the bike in areas normally covered by fasteners. There's really no damage to be done to the bike by these bags if properly installed.

I put some clear tape on the tail ridge where one of the straps came very close to the bodywork. It wasn't touching, but I imagined if it worked loose it would quickly whip through the clearcoat on the ridge.

The Aprilia price on the kit is $296 before discounts. It's pretty reasonable if you consider the cost of one similarly sized tank bag.

The kit includes the two expandable bags (shown here closed), with luggage handles, rain covers, draw string liner and zippered compartment and rubber coating on the bottom. There are two powder-coated racks and mounting hardware. The bags fit on the racks with keyhole mounts at the bottom, and straps at the top. The kit also includes a piece of cut and drilled closed-cell foam and additional straps so you can mount one bag alone on the passenger seat. The foam protects your seat from indentations from the bag mounting posts. I believe a bag mounted this way without the racks would require a strap against the paint (I didn't try it). The Eclipse bag I showed in the pictures is clipped and strapped to the racks, sitting on the foam. It didn't contact the seat or paint. I don't remember how much I paid for the Eclipse bag ten years ago.

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Here's a suction cup radar detector mount in action (Radio Shack, $7 about seven years ago). I wired it off the battery with a 1A fuse, so it's not switched. You could try tapping into the headlamp relay, but I didn't want to sacrifice reliability.

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My lovely bride Patricia with F4, Falco and a view from NY State's Rt 23. Note: I carried her luggage, she carried mine.

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