Friday, June 15, 2012

Would you mount a milk crate on your Royal Enfield?

The Invisible Milk Crate from Aerostich is completely invisible.
Royal Enfield motorcycles might end up sitting on a milk crate while they're being repaired, but at least I've never seen a picture of a milk crate mounted as a luggage container on a Royal Enfield motorcycle.

The ugly black milk crates were a fixture of motorcycling when I was young, especially around any college campus. Text book were heavy enough not to bounce out and milk crates were free.

Milk crates cost nothing because, of course, you had to steal them. They came with the name of the dairy on the side and there are stories on line about guys who knew guys who got tickets for possessing stolen property.

Today, you can legally buy a brand new milk crate from Amazon.com for only $5.50. Doing that, however, would remove the essential ingredient of larceny and thus the fun of having the milk crate on the bike.

No one could can deny that the milk crate was functional — at least in theory. In practice, your foot slammed into the thing every time you wanted to get on or off the motorcycle.

That might not be as much of a problem with the new "Invisible Milk Crate" offered by Aerostitch.  Since it is electronic, it can be adjusted to take up no more room than necessary: from grapefruit size, to even bigger than a standard milk crate, depending on the load you want to carry.

It's far more attractive, too. I mean, given that it's invisible.

It is pricey, however, and one customer review points out that its emissions make you visible to Federation battle cruisers when you're cloaked.

1 comment:

  1. I tend to agree with the reviewers who are concerned about the current the thing draws.

    I mounted a late 40s or early 50s J. C. Higgens suitcase (Sears and Roebuck imitation of a Samsonite) to my Royal Enfield, and got a little bit of negative feedback. But I think it was better than a milk crate. A few guys on the RE board suggested that I should have mounted a wicker basket.

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