Day 0

Well the first snag to the trip has already happened. I ended up breaking my rear luggage mount on the Ducati on my trip to Tahoe three weeks ago.

I guess too many years of lugging a heavy laptop back and forth to work finally caused a stress fracture. So I had to buy a new frame mount kit. The kicker is that the original luggage manufacture went out of business and the parts team at Peninsula Ducati didn’t have a clue if the older luggage would work with the new stuff. Everything looked the same so I went ahead and ordered the frame kit for $190. If you bought the whole kit with the new luggage it was over $800; the heck with that when my luggage is still good.

I have been waiting for this kit to arrive for almost two weeks. When I ordered it I told the parts guy that I had to have it by the 12^th as I was leaving on a trip. “No problem” I was told….Yeah right !!!! Last Friday I am sweating bullets as it did not come in and they were hoping it would show up on Monday. Luckily it did show up but with a catch.

Yes…to ensure more money lets force the consumer to have to buy all new luggage by changing the mount plate with the hooks for the luggage just enough so the old luggage will not fit. So yes I was in a fantastic mood and my usual calm self when I got home and compared the mounts with my old luggage. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, “Freaken Idiots”.

I decided to mount the brackets and see if there was a way I could use my old mount plate with these brackets. The first challenge was reading the wonderful instructions with precise and crystal clear diagrams (yeah right). The schematics were done by a retard with zero CAD skills. Richard and Tu could have done a better job after a 12 pack and blindfolded (for those that are not from Caspian I am sure you are wondering who the hell Richard and Tu are… LOL),

In addition to changing the luggage brackets they also decided to change the angle of the brackets so there was no way the old mount plate would bolt to the brackets. Now I am really in a jolly mood. After careful inspection I found a way that I could use the old mount plate with the new brackets. It just required drilling some new holes in the brackets and some good lock washers with plenty of loctite. Yes….. no way I am going to pay another $600 and waste a functional piece of luggage.

Click here to see all the pictures.

Now that I lost a good portion of my day on this wonderful task I need to alter my plans. I will not be leaving at 5:30 AM on Tuesday, now I will probably just sleep in, play it by ear and leave whenever I get all of the other stuff done tomorrow. I will probably not roll out of San Jose until 11 AM or noon. I figure I will just drive until I am tired and then do a long drive to Dallas the following day.