New (sorta) product for our girlies

[Sasquatch]

Sorry I have been so absent for a while here.  Got laid off from my career position of 15 years in January.  Was offered another job which was fantastic, but at a much reduced salary.  This meant the home had to go and a move was in order.

We are starting to settle in now and getting our lives back, but I digress.  The new product.... I now work for Happy Trails.  Most of you know them, or at least know who they are.  I guess I should say that what follows is SPAM, but, since products are so rare for the Tiger, I thought you guys would like to kow.

Anyway.  We redesigned an old tail rack design for the girly and made a production run.  It is a bit larger and much flatter than stock.  I am now going to mount up a Happy Trails top box with a quick release puck system on top of it (tomorrows project).

Here is the rack.  We have 6 in stock and I think my father and one of our riding buddies are going to buy one as well.





Price is $139usd.

I think I have them convinced to revisit the crash bar project as well.  This time with a redesign that allows you to purchase it in stages, not the whole $700+ package at once.  Many wanted just a skid plate, or just the highway pegs, etc.  I need to see if I can make that happen.  Let me know if there is interest.

[Stretch]

Good stuff.

I read your post on ADV about your changes.  Sorry to hear it, and I hope things work out well for you and the fambly.

I'm moving this to 'Everything Else For Sale', but with a shadow in the original location for folks to see and click on.

[DRB Imagery]

So this is why Jason was telling me that HT was revisiting some older products such as skid plates etc,,,,congrats. Sorry to hear about all the other drama though. Best of luck to you there, I think they are pretty top notch but definitely need some good help in some areas and Im sure you can afect this change!!

Dave

[sanjoh]

Great to hear you recovered from the layoff. Hopefully your passion for bikes and the new gig  make up for the shortcoming in the $.

[Bruincounselor]

That looks great. I can see it will fit with a Corbin, will it work with my HT rack?

Dream mode:
I am not willing to give up the comfort of my Corbin, but I have always hated the wasted space on the passenger seat as I rarely have passenger. It would be realy cool to have a rack like that with a sliding (or hinged) extension that could attach a driver backrest and perhaps support something like a fuel cell. I could keep the weight more forward and just slide it back if I needed to pop the seat.

What do you think Jay?

[flux]

Man, I'm glad things worked out for you.  I'm assuming you were a welder/fabricator in your past life... I don't need to tell you how much manufacturing is hurting in this country... its a sad state of affairs...

That rack looks pretty good but to be honest I've never personally needed a bigger rack.  

Now... what I AM interested in is buying some of those mounts you've made up to attach some aluminum panniers to the stock brackets.  Whaddaya say???

I'm anxious to see a skidplate solution.... I already have crash bars... Hepcos... and my buddy has made me a great skidplate but the problem is it's outta STEEL and it weighs a TON.

[Sasquatch]

Now... what I AM interested in is buying some of those mounts you've made up to attach some aluminum panniers to the stock brackets.  Whaddaya say???

I have the only set of those in existence.  While there are aspects of them that are nice, if I had to do it all over again, with my own money, I would have just bought a set of the HT SU racks and mounted the boxes to them.  Much stronger, more secure and less hassle in the long run.

Because of that, I support HT's decision to not produce them.  We would loose every cent of profit made just handling the tech support calls and irate customers because they are not that stable.

[Sasquatch]

That looks great. I can see it will fit with a Corbin, will it work with my HT rack?

Dream mode:
I am not willing to give up the comfort of my Corbin, but I have always hated the wasted space on the passenger seat as I rarely have passenger. It would be realy cool to have a rack like that with a sliding (or hinged) extension that could attach a driver backrest and perhaps support something like a fuel cell. I could keep the weight more forward and just slide it back if I needed to pop the seat.

What do you think Jay?

Nice idea, but I seriously wonder if enough could be sold to pay off the R&D and production costs to make it viable.

I have always wished for a solo seat and to convert the passenger area to more storage.  never got around to that one though.

We made a goof on this rack, but yes, production runs will work with the HT SU racks.

[flux]

Now... what I AM interested in is buying some of those mounts you've made up to attach some aluminum panniers to the stock brackets.  Whaddaya say???

I have the only set of those in existence.  While there are aspects of them that are nice, if I had to do it all over again, with my own money, I would have just bought a set of the HT SU racks and mounted the boxes to them.  Much stronger, more secure and less hassle in the long run.

Because of that, I support HT's decision to not produce them.  We would loose every cent of profit made just handling the tech support calls and irate customers because they are not that stable.

Good feedback, thanks.  I can see how it would be hard to make them stable.  

I'll be watching to see what else you come up with.

The backrest thing is a neat idea but I agree... I don't think you'd sell enough of them.  Before I had my Corbin I tried coming up with ideas to ditch the passenger seat in favor of something more along the lines of what the BMW GS series bikes offer.  It kind of got to the point of being a pain in the rear though.

[John Stenhouse]

+1 for a skidplate, but in my case it needs to fit the 885i Girly

[johnnyadventurepants]

Skid plate please!!!!!  Something like Touratech that would work with different crash bars (or none), but not cost an arm and 2 legs would be awesome!

[rainycoastguy]

A big - welcome back -  Sasquatch.

[HappyMan]

Good to hear from you again Squatch!

[Dr. Mordo]

Very nice rack!

That would be a great farkle if I owned a Girly.  

Sorry to hear things have been bad, Sas, but it's good to have you bakc and maybe you can slant those HT guys to make some cool stuff for us (which obviously you are working on already).

[Bruincounselor]

...I seriously wonder if enough could be sold to pay off the R&D and production costs to make it viable.

I have always wished for a solo seat and to convert the passenger area to more storage.  never got around to that one though.

We made a goof on this rack, but yes, production runs will work with the HT SU racks.

Glad to hear it will work with the SU rack :D

I understand the volume issue completely. Ya gotta pay for your keep anywhere these days. I may have to get one and fab up my own extension. I see some possibilities from the photos. Do you have some side views?