When we just arrived in Thailand, we thought “Thai scoots are cool, but when you go to shopping cars are better”. One time I even tried brave deed: took box with big multifunction printer by scooter. Box stood between me and handlebar and interfered with driving process.
But now, after several years I learnt some tricks and can say: With your funny small scooter you can carry more luggage than you can imagine. I can number 7 places:
0. Front basket
No front baskets! Firstly, they look lame and cheap. Secondly, they break bike aerodynamics. Finally, they’re not secure.
1. Place under a saddle
Some big scooters, like Yamaha Nuovo, Honda Airblade (models positioned like bikes for men) have quite wide place under a saddle. You can keep first aid kit, docs, tools and 5 killos of fruits there. Smaller bikes made for women like Yamaha Mio, Honda Click have very small space for keeping something bigger than a first aid kit box.
2. Standart hook
Old good hook, a quick and useful solution for markets, especially in Thailand where every product put into a separate packet. Amount of luggage limited only your ability to spread your legs.
3. Feet’s place
There you can throw several big and heavy packets or even bags. We carry there, for example, bags with potatoes and tomatoes.
4. Additional hook
If one hook is not enough for you – buy and install the second, usually scooters have hole for it.
5. Passenger place
If you haven’t a passenger you have a tasty place for carrying very big objects. All you need is to buy 2-3 special ellastic luggage ropes to fasten your luggage. My track records: I carried 2 big speakers and subwoofer, also I carried not heavy but big plastic cabinet.
6. Luggage box
Luggage boxes cost about 100 dollars in Thailand. They ‘re useful if you have a scooter with small space under a saddle, but want to keep safe important papers or expensive things in your bike. Also luggage boxes are useful for long trips by same reasons.
7. Mirrors’ stands
The last chance. Before I peep this trick doing by women from local market, I used handlebar’s grips. But it wasn’t so good, packets interfered with bike control. Using mirror’s stands as luggage hooks a bit secure and useful.
Several photos
I brought 3.1 acoustic system to secondhand shop:
Woman from local market covered a whole motorbike by packets with greens, vegetables and fruits. She used places number 5 and 7:
Very good DIY idea: use two special hooks for carrying bunch of packets with luggage:
Picture for atmosphere only. Woman with big amount of luggage prefer to use samlo – Thai tricycle rickshaw:
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Do you know about the book called “Bikes of Burden” by Hans Kemp? It’s a very cool photo book of motorcycles in Vietnam overloaded with all kinds of stuff. You should check it out!
Dale: nope. I have only “Very Thai” (it’s a Bible of Thai modern culture) and “101 Thai Forms”.
Do you know some websites like this books? I plain to build a blog about odd things in whole Asia, something like englishrussia.com .