Oxford Sport Tail Bag

The Oxford Sport Tail Bag, provides an additional 42 liters of carrying capacity and can be fitted to a variety of motorcycle seats, is rectangular in shape, at 350mm wide and about 400mm long.

The Tail Bag is installed by locating it on the back of the seat and placing the strap underneath the seat. Oxford recommends at least 150mm of overlap on the Velcro. Subtracting this from the total strap length leaves a total of about 400mm, so the seat has to be thin and narrow for the Tail Bag to fit on top of the seat while the strap is wrapped around underneath. We couldn't quite get the Tail Bag to fit the stock seat on a Triumph Thunderbird Sport, which is 12" wide at the rear 5.5" thick.

The bungee cords are designed to be threaded through the large external D-rings on each of the two flaps on the Tail Bag and secured to the bike's luggage hooks, foot rest, frame other appropriate area. This provides an extra margin of safety to keep the Tail Bag in place.

Oxford also includes four extra 325mm bungee cords with the Tail Bag, and these are meant to be used as an additional attachment to hold the bag to the motorcycle. One more tip: we also found that it was much easier to mount the Tail Bag before mounting the saddlebags.

The Sport Tail Bag's 42 liter capacity is greater than the largest size tank bags. The cover of the Tail Bag has two zippers, one on each side, and a length of Velcro at the rear. Two extra D-rings are sewn on to both sides of the bag above the pockets, so there are many different ways to mount the Tail Bag securely to the bike.

The Sport Tail Bag has four external pockets. There are two tapered side pockets, each about 230mm long by 125mm high by about 40mm deep. These have top opening zippers using the metal ring pull, and they have a fabric pattern that matches the Oxford Compact Tank Bag.

The rear pocket is about 230mm wide by 140mm high by 60mm deep, can be zipped off and used as a "bum bag". Inside the Tail Bag are a cell phone pocket, a small 100mm x 130mm pocket with a flap and a small mesh pocket for incidentals.

How to choose between the Tail Bag and the Tank Bag? One of the advantages of the Tail Bag is that it doesn't interfere with refueling the bike.

Rapid Transit Recon 23 Motorcycle Tail Bag

Executive summary about motorcycle tail bags by Kevin G

The Recon 23 Tail Bag holds 23 liters of gear, has two extra pockets on the front end. Sneakily located under the front pouch is another zippered pocket; the zipper is actually on the underside of the bag, and this under-pocket is between the main pouch and the front pocket. Two bungee cords run the length of the bag, with 3/4" hooks at either end. Throw the bag on the pillion seat, attach the front hooks to your passenger pegs, then hook the rear cords to the spools on your tail end.

After taking the Recon off the bike, just stuff the hooks and cords into the pocket that covers the entire underside of the bag, and trust the hook and loop closures at either end to keep everything in place. To carry the bag around, you can either use the big handle on top or attach the shoulder strap.

Since the hooks on the bungee cords are wider than the flange on my spools, I often loop the bungee through my grab rail, around the spools, then hooked the cord onto itself. The bag is built well enough to handle some light rain, but for anything heavier it's time to dig out the included rain cover.

The Recon 23 is a really great bag that does everything asked with no muss, no fuss. It really does go on and off the bag in moments, and the hidden rain cover pocket is one of those well-executed ideas that makes the bag a treat to use.