Hi!
This is a short story about how we accidentally built a suit of armour.
In this picture Ryan has just bailed off the back of the GasGas ES700.
It was a tricky little ascent out of a tight wooded section, straight onto a road so you have to be careful not to carry so much momentum that you can't stop quickly if there's a car coming.
It's not hard enduro, but it's also not hard to fall off.
As Ryan found out.
The ES700 is making use of our crash bars up front.
But at the back it's hard not to notice the large white luggage racks.
Now, when these racks were on the drawing board, the primary problem we were trying to solve was how to make a luggage mounting system for a series of bikes that traditionally aren't really well setup for carrying luggage.
Because we know that our tribe love using these bikes for their lightweight multi-day adventures.
And for that you are going to need some luggage.
The 690/700/701 platform houses its fuel tank at the rear of the bike, with no traditional rear subframe to bolt onto.
The bikes do include threaded mounts sunk into the fuel tank so you can add a top rack no problem.
The side luggage racks, well not so easy.
More head scratchy.
More trial and error.
More design time with our factory.
We kept asking them to remove more aluminium.
They kept telling us that they needed to keep enough to make the rack strong.
First round proto - bending to match the profile of the rear of the bike
.
Figuring out what the mounting points will look like.
Second or maybe third proto. Before we trimmed the rack down even more.
I remember showing this prototype to some trusted friends.
I think the response was something like - "you built a suit of armour!"
Which was not entirely untrue.
You see, all of our luggage racks are designed to create strong, versatile mounting points on bikes that traditionally don't receive luggage terribly well.
We do our best to make sure that they fit the design aesthetic of the bike.
They need to look right.
(We did end up trimming a bit more aluminium off those GasGas racks).
But here's the thing, they are also really strong.
Like, protect your bike when you bail off the back strong.
And when that happens, well the whole 'suit of armour' conversation suddenly becomes a bit more relavant.
We don't make suits of armour for adventure bikes.
But we do make rear luggage racks.
💪
Greg Villalobos
GASGAS ES700 (+690 +701 LUGGAGE RACKS)
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