SW-Motech GPS bag and clip adapter

Hey!

Having a GPS on your motorcycle can often spare you some headache when you get lost in the middle of nowhere or help you find a point of interest (gas station, hotels, camps,…). But as we all are aware of motorcycle GPS systems are quite expensive, due to being dust and waterproof. And because of that a lot of people are using car devices that are cheaper but not so resistant to the elements. In this case, if you want to protect your GPS, you need a bag for it. Most of the bags protect from dust and water and there is also a wide variety of brands, styles, and quality of the bags.

For my GPS unit I chose the SW-Motech bag and clip adapter to mount it to the bike (still in process of designing). I like SW-Motech’s products a lot so I prefer to stick with it, though it is a bit on the expensive side, but the quality of the product is really on a high level (personal experience).

Here are the links to the SW-Motech’s site for the products I bought. For the clip adapter click here, and GPS bag is here.

First lets take a look at the packing in which the items came. Clip adapter is in a hard plastic case with hardened paper backing, inside you can see both adapters, male and female, and a black paper box. GPS bag comes in a soft plastic bag, and there is only the bag in there.

Now lets take a closer look at both items. First the clip adapter. Inside the box there are both plates and a cardboard box. The adapters are made out of plastic with brass (i think) inserts which are threaded.

Inside that black box are all the bolts, washers and nuts to mount the adapter to the bag and to the GPS holder you have on the bike. There is also an instruction sheet which is in English and German.

Now moving on the GPS bag. SW-Motech makes different sized bags to accommodate the wide variety of GPS devices. The bag I got is a medium size. The dimensions are 145 mm x 95 mm x 35 mm. What I found interesting is that every single bag they make is individually checked that everything is included, there is no damage and everything works.

Here is the bag itself:

It is really well made product, no bad seams or any faults on the bag. It has a sun visor to give some shade to the GPS so it is better visible on those really sunny days. The zipper is inverted and feels rubberized to deflect water. It also includes a eyelet for a lock.

On the bottom and on the right hand side there are integrated cable lead-through holes for cable such as power supply or headphones if your device has this option.

Now lets open up the bag. Inside the bag there are two foams that are different in their density. The back one is stiffer that the one in the front. There is also a set of bolts and instruction manual, that is again in English and German.

Back plate of the bag is made out of thick plastic which is riveted to the fabric. This plate has factory drilled holes for mounting the clip adapter or any other mounting plate in SW-Motech’s line. Only thing left to do is to cut through the fabric and make holes for the bolts.

In this bag I will be using my Garmin 2460LT GPS which is quite large with its 12,7cm (5 inch) screen. It is bigger than zumo 660 which is the biggest motorcycle GPS and it costs one third of the price of zumo 660. Here is the picture of the Garmin in the bag with only the hardest foam in the bag:

Here is a short video I made to show that touch screen works through the bag without any problems. Quality is a bit low as I didn’t have any good cameras to make a video and the music sucks.

At the moment I am still working out where to mount it on the bike, but once I will have a fixed mounting position there will be a write up in the modification section of the blog.

Have a nice day!