I bought some Street Glide hard bags off of ebay and put them on my RK Custom. The seller switched their SG to leather...imagine that! Although I'm keeping my leather bags I really like the hard bags. I found they pack more then my leather bags and look better on "my" bike. I also had no mounting alignment issues with mine. There are always some for sale on ebay.

 

i switched from the leather to the hard bags.....like em wayyyy better, easier in/out, lockable, and they look much better for how i want my bike to be.

 

What kind of lock did you put on your leather bags? How hard was it to do?

Hack

 

Well, most cleaners that you'd use on the rest of the bike, from everything I've heard you don't want to use on leather. So I take them off, thoroughly clean them with some non-alkaline leather cleaner, rinse, let them dry a little while cleaning the rest of the bike, then thoroughly rub in leather conditioner, then reattach. And of course then they have to sit a couple hours or overnight for everything to set in before I can ride or the trip into town on the gravel road will have them coated in dust again.

Basically I'm trying to reduce the time my weekly cleaning takes to get it reasonably clean. Right now it takes easily an hour and a half or more. And not having the leather would mean I don't have to wait hours after cleaning to ride again. If I had hard bags I'd just leave them on and clean whatever I can get at with the sponge and the hose, and only do more than that once a month or so.

I do like the look of the leather bags better, but it's just a question of practicality for me as much as I ride with long commutes and the fact that I live on a dusty dirt road off of a dusty gravel road.

Another option I guess is to just run without the bags other than when on trips. Though I want to keep the full stock bag guard bars on and that would look a little off with no bags.

 

along with the basketweave, i really like the way the leather bags contour 'in' at the rear- whereas the hard bags are simply boxes.

 

I have had my RK Classic for about 8 years. I rode it about 4 with the leather bags and then bought some hard ones.

I love the look of the hard bags and the locks on them. However, keeping them "scratchfree" particularly the lids is a challenge if you are **** about your paint always looking pristine.

On the other hand, the leather was no big deal to maintain. Treat it basically like your shoes. During a bike washing, I washed them withMurphy's oil soap and then set them aside whileIcleaned the rest of the bike. About twice a year, I would take them off and smear them with a heavy coat of mink oil and let them sit in the sun. It would sink in after a while, then I would just buff them with a cloth. I put about 40k on the bags over 4 years. They still look great.

All things aside, I prefer the hard bags.