The bike is my only mode of transport now.

For the foreseeable future it's the only thing I've got. Honestly, it's sort of an exciting proposition to me. I need to work out some kind of luggage capability. It'll need to be pretty flexible for carrying different things. I'll need to get some rain gear.

I'd like to hear what you guys deem necessary to live with a motorcycle daily.

Any recommendation on rain gear? Something with good protection that is lightweight and easy to store on the bike?

I'm going to build a luggage rack, seems like the most versatile way to be able to carry the various things I may need.

I'll also need some type of permanent storage on the bike for the things I need to have with me. I need something that is secure, waterproof and lockable. I'm thinking some kind of Pelican case.

So far my list is; rain gear (pants, jacket and gloves), spare clear helmet visor and a place to keep some extra straps and tie downs.

Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

JCWhitney carries a decent large size trunk for $49. Its on sale right now, free shipping and 10% off. While not the absolute best quality, it is more than adequate to carry all the things you need. It will even match your paint scheme!

I have long made due without a box or saddlebags of any kind using bungie cargo nets- not that I'm suggesting you do that, but those are good to carry and two of them + saddlebags could easily get you a lot of carrying capacity.

Frogg Toggs of your choosing sized to fit over your gear should be good for rain gear if you have waterproof boots/gloves.

Is your lighting sufficient for night use? Some bikes are fine, some greatly lacking. Does it ever get cold enough to need heated gear where you are? Maybe add a USB outlet to charge phone? Do you use your phone for GPS? A mount for that would be good too in that case.

A set of hard bags should be easily available for your bike on ebay. I have aluminum cans that can hold an entire grocery run. It was funny to watch the guy's face at the beer store over the xmas holiday when I put three cases of beer/soda cans in them. Most of the time I don't need that much space.

When I don't need a lot of crap like just riding for fun or going to work I have a big yellow waterproof duffel I use for my clothes and electronics. Like this but mine is an old mountain climbing variant I got for free from my BIL so it's really rugged. REI probably has them. I use a spider web bungie to strap it on the pillion.

For rain gear... I finally broke down and got a goretex jacket and pants set because I hate to have to pull over and change into $79 worth of glorified plastic bags. First of all because by the time I get stopped and into the rain gear I'm already wet and second because I hate loose baggy stuff flapping in the wind. So, I dropped some major coin at a revzilla closeout sale over the holiday and bought Klim Badlands Pro jacket new and found the matching pants on the flea market at advrider for half price. I have a set of AGV winter gloves that are waterproof. What I don't have is waterproof boots and that sucks. I'm not sure how to solve that one for less than a couple hundred for new ones except to use plastic booties (which I don't... I bring dry hiking boots and socks in the bag). I'm always looking for a good used set of Sidi Adventure Goretex boots but they are always the wrong size or have sole damage when they show up. Way too steep to buy new.

¯_(ツ)_/¯ brings up another point... lighting. I live in antlered rat country and my stock headlamp is a POS. There are a lot of ways to blow too much money on lighting for bikes or spend too little and get garbage. My compromise was...

LEDRider.com has LR4 flood lamps that put out 3600 lumens each on sale. If you use the code ADV15 you can get the pair shipped for $155. I wired them up to a skene 175 dimmer controller so they run at 20% power as DRLs and then when I hit the high beam switch they berkeleying explode the landscape into daylight. Total outlay was $220 for 7200 lumens. Not cheap but way better than you will get from the $59 ebay lamps and a quarter the cost of something like Clearwater sells.

For GPS I use my phone on a RAM mount with a sandwich bag for weather. Osmand+ software ($5.99) lets me use the nav without phone signal because it stores all the maps. I have a bluetooth Scala Q2 Pro so I can listen to tunes, or hear turn-by-turn directions. In theory, I can even answer the phone but eff that. I would not have bought the Scala except that I also do in-car HPDE/race instruction and I had it already as a wireless in car communicator. It works great. I think they have a newer better model now but you can still get the Q2 I have for $90 or so. You can also just use a cheap pair of wired ear buds from Walmart for $0.99 .

So that my GPS phone doesn't go dead I bought a $19 Blue Sea systems marine USB charger socket (has waterproof flap) and put it in the faring up front. It came in a set with a 12v regular cigarette lighter socket I put on the other side for no other reason than... because why not? I imagine it could be used when camping for something I forgot needed power.

GPS and I disagree on lighting (cost wise, anyway). I have a pair of these bad boys on my DRZ, and they perform just as well as the (much more expensive) aux lights on my friend's KLR. If you have the wattage to spare, I think you can get a lot more light for your $ with these. FWIW, I have tried several other cheap LEDs... it took some experimentation to find good ones.

Unfortunately, the phone stayed at the company along with the truck in the lay-off. I'm not sure when I'll get to replace that.

The light was good but I haven't done a ton of night riding with it.

I don't think I'll need any heated gear. It gets cold but I can manage. I may fab up some wind deflectors if I have problems with my hands.

I have to get this set up for very little money. When and if I find a job I can start worrying about upgrading the rain gear, at this point the cheaper the better.

In reply to ¯_(ツ)_/¯:

Hahaha! You out-cheaped a KLR rider!

FWIW, those are going to be somewhere around 700-1200 lumens each so not nearly as much light - but the 60 degree beam pattern is perfect for antlered rats. If they work for you $35 is pretty hard to beat and 18w @ 12v isn't hardly any load on the system. That is only 1.5a each ... a 5a fuse and some thin ass wire will work.

In reply to Nick_Comstock:

Cheap Cargo Net
Cheap Rain Suit

I know nothing about the suit, but I have several of those cargo nets and they work great.

I haven't really investigated it too much but from what I've read that the electrical system of a sportster is not very robust.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

I know! I have more milk crates than him too, I think he needs to buy a BMW

The light pattern is good, and they're survived some serious beatings (bike is used for RallyMoto) without a single issue. At 50+ mph I'm outriding them, but I have a (more expensive) LED spot for range.

Nick_Comstock wrote: I haven't really investigated it too much but from what I've read that the electrical system of a sportster is not very robust.

It cannot possibly be less robust than the one on a DRZ400E. As GPS noted, LEDs don't draw much current- if your headlight pattern is OK but just not bright enough, you could also just put in a better bulb.

EDIT: BTW, one thing I have noticed with all of the Chinese "waterproof" lights I've used- they ship with the hardware loose. Tighten everything, and you're good to go. Mine are totally dry inside despite a lot of rain riding and a front flip into a puddle.

I'm not into bikes, but I am into the idea of buying one of the $180 trailers, such as those found at Harbor Freight. A number of reviews on these trailers are by people who have modified them for use with a bike.

Just throwing that out there. I like working, practical bicycles, so working practical motorcycles sound pretty cool too. Best of luck with all of this.

Coming from being motorcycle only for 3+ years before I moved to Alaska...

Rain gear is overrated unless you live in Seattle or somewhere else that's perpetually damp. The only time the rain really matters is riding [I]to[/I] work in the rain, when you need to be dry vs riding home where it'd be nice to be dry but not necessary. A Gore-Tex jacket and a set of rain pants makes life a lot easier though, admittedly. My normal commute kit was a Klim Traverse jacket and Aerostich AD-1 overpants for fall, winter, and spring. Hurricane proof rain resistance, dried out by the time I finished my shift too usually, breathed well enough even in Maryland summers. In summer I switched to a Rev'It Air jacket and Olympia Airglide overpants or jeans.

Get a good helmet if you don't already have one. Good as in comfortable, and if you're still in Texas one with lots of vents.

Keep shoes at work, wherever work ends up being, and wear riding boots on the bike.

Luggage, I never liked having a ton of crap on my bike. A tank bag (that stays on the bike full-time) and a back pack sufficed for just about everything I ever needed to carry including grocery runs. With a sportster I'd probably get a swingarm bag and a small rack in case I needed to strap down a duffel and leave it at that. It's not a damn car or truck, don't treat it like one and try to bring ALL THE THINGS with you all the time.

A waterproof cell phone and/or case for one is pretty much a necessity. Pockets leak.

Heated grips and a heated jacket will go a long way towards 4 season comfort. I wouldn't commute or tour without either now.

I have played around with a bunch of different LEDs for my bike and will say that one Clearwater ($350+) is nice but I think two of these Hella Optilux ( I have the rounds in tight and wide beam) kick ass. They are REALLY durable too. These are on my dirt bike which has take a tumble or 5, one at over 20 mph. I am with the gang, never can have too many lights. Your bike is injected right? You should have enough juice to run two good sized LEDs on top of your stock light without much issue. Wiring is a bitch though.

I tend to wear mostly textile/Goretex type motorcycling gear, if you have that you normally don't need an additional rainsuit. If you do ride mostly wearing a leather jacket and jeans, I would get a cheap single-piece oversuit for heavy rain. Those tend to cook you in your own juice so they're really only good in heavier rain, but in that case they're really useful.

I am always dumbfounded by how much used riding gear there is out there. It doesn't allow you to be real picky about style, and sometime you have to watch for a while to see stuff in your size come through, but between Craigslist and the flea market on advrider I see a lot of lightly used gear for a fraction of new prices.

I've found some really good deals on eBay too.

In reply to skierd:

Thanks for the reply skierd, it's good to hear from someone who has done it.

I'm with you on keeping it minimal. I also agree that I'm more concerned about about getting to work dry verses getting home dry. I have a textile jacket now that is terrific in 30* temps and bearable in 100+. I was planning on getting a mesh jacket for the super hot days. I have a couple pair of Duluth Trading Company fatigue pants that I ride in. Not as much protection as real motorcycle pants but they are much tougher than jeans and I've read a couple crash reports of people going down with them and they managed to avoid any road rash.

I was looking at some Frogg Toggs, jackets and pants earlier and they seem like they could be folded up very tightly and are very light weight. I'll likely try those.

I'm thinking that a sissy bar may be even more versatile than a rack...

I typically stop and wait for rain to pass, but they make parka overcoats and overpants that can be rolled up and stored in a small space when not needed.

Aerostitch and some hard luggage

Nick_Comstock wrote: I was looking at some Frogg Toggs, jackets and pants earlier and they seem like they could be folded up very tightly and are very light weight. I'll likely try those.

For weather protection, get a single piece oversuit. Unless you like ending up with water trickling down your pants anyway in heavy rain.

racerboy000 wrote: Aerostitch

I know people love these things but they look like a cross between a Carrhart snow suit and a potato sack. I imagine they smell like sweaty nut bag from 30' away on a warm afternoon.

I went technical textile shell jacket and pant combo so I could mix/match layers to match as much of a spread of climate/rain and still get serious venting for those days when it's above 75F. I can also just thro on my mesh armor under a pair of kevlar jeans if I want to arrive somewhere looking less like a german tourist. If you are going to have a bike for transport 24/7/365 I like options over a one piece.

And to be honest, a cheap beater with a heater will be more cost effective than buying a dedicated rain suit.