I’ll start this post by saying that I didn’t want a topcase. Flora wanted it to carry our camera gear and planned to mount it on her motorcycle but for whatever reason, I inherited it. My previous experiences with topcases were all bad and I did not want one on my brand new F800GS. I had used numerous brands and they all suffered from the same flaws: rattling loose or just plain snapping off when used in an off-road environment for a long time. That all being said, we need storage for our film equipment and other electronic items we bring for our projects.
Flora chose the Touratech Zega Pro 25L topcase and we fitted it to the back of my F800GS. My skepticism levels were still at maximum warp but I was surprised and impressed when I saw how easily the topcase could be removed and mounted again thanks to Touratech’s rapid trap mounting system. In addition, I really liked how easy it was to lock up our equipment in the topcase.
They say that the “proof is in the pudding” but in my case, it’s in the crashing. I’ve accumulated 25,000 miles on my F800GS since August 2011, the topcase has stayed on for every single one of them. These miles included long off-road trips mixed with paved travel. The off-road trips have included every type of topcase destroying terrain that I can think of. The WABDR (Washington Back-Country Discovery Route) included a lot of large ‘baby head’ rocks which would have rattled apart any of my previous topcases. On this trip the topcase was solid and the mount didn’t require any further tightening or attention.
We then traveled on to the UTBDR (Utah Back-Country Discovery Route), we rode over 800 miles of the state through various unpaved conditions. Our route included the ‘expert only’ Lockhart Basin section and this stretch alone saw me drop the bike more times than I care to count. The topcase experienced no ill effects despite the jarring falls and rugged terrain. The mounting system held fast on this trip too and our gear remained dry and safe.
The topcase was part of my luggage system for our project ‘Moto Americana: Deserts’ which was a 1200 mile trip connecting many of Southern California’s deserts together into one great ride. This run included many miles of washboard gravel roads, deep sand, and some pretty rough and rocky terrain. Again the topcase and mounting system were flawless.
On top of those major projects, there are still thousands of paved travel miles, off-road adventures, rain storms, drops, crashes, adventures, and more. The topcase still looks brand new and works perfectly. We use the rapid trap system to pull the topcase off the bike every night and it just clicks back in place in the mornings before we ride away. The Touratech Zega Pro 25L topcase is an excellent piece of equipment. It redefined for me what a topcase was capable of and I won’t travel without one now.
For more information on the Touratech Zega Pro 25L topcase. Check out Touratech-USA’s website.
