Rockie Rides in his Pooch-Pouch!

Rockie is my dog. He is a mini-dachshund and a bundle of joy (when he is not busy being a pest). He was born in July of 2006 and we purchased him in December of 2006 from the breader. He was the most mellow of the pups and that was important. He is a rather good dog and listens most of the time. He really is the cutest little thing and full of pep without being hyper. He started riding with me in early 2007. He rode in my jacket with his little nose sticking out. As the warmer weather started coming I quickly realized that he wasn't going to be able to ride in my jacket if my jacket was stuffed in the trunk of the Goldwing. Well, at least he wouldn't like riding there.

My dog Rockie loves to ride on my Goldwing in his new tank bag. It took some thought on how to make it functional and safe but it was well worth the effort. If you have a small or medium size dog that you want to let ride on your Goldwing with you, you may consider doing something similar.

I started working on a way to let him ride in front on the tank. But as you may know, there are no tank bags for the Goldwing. With all the storage in the rear, why would you want another bag stuffed on the tank? Magnetic tank bags don't work because, well, the tank area on the Goldwing is plastic. So I purchased the "voyager GIVI bag" and had it modified down at my local shoe and ludgage repair shop. They added three straps to the bag for me. One is attached at the top and when clipped close creates a loop. This loop slides under the neck just below where the key goes near the handle bars. The other two straps (one on each side) loop around the foot pegs and sinch tight to keep the bag from slipping to the side or flipping forward during a rapid stop.

One strap is attached at the top of the bag and when clipped close creates a loop. This loop slides under the neck of the motorcycle just below where the key goes near the handle bars. There is plenty of strength under the plastic so you don't have to worry about breaking anything. The stress of the bag is minimal.

The other two straps are located one on each side of the bag and they connect down to the foot pegs. On these straps that go to the foot pegs there is a good deal of extra strap. To keep this from flapping I simply placed a small black rubber band on the strap. This gives me the ability to make adjustments if needed. The total length of the strap is about 36 inches. If you are going to have a bag like this made, let the person doing the stitching make measurements. If they get it wrong, they get to fix it at no extra charge (usually). It is always better to have too much strap because you can always cut it down. You can't stretch it if it is too short.

The straps that loop over the foot pegs come completely apart from the bag at the clip. You to slack up the strap, connect it to the foot peg then sinch it tight. After the initial adjustment, you don't need to slack the strap any more. Just unclip it and slip it over the foot peg to get it on or off. Then clip it back to the bag. This makes it very fast to get the bag on or off the bike.

To keep Rockie from falling out or jumping out, there is another strap stitched into the inside of the bag. On the end there is a clasp that connects to his body harness. NEVER CLIP YOUR DOG WITH A NECK COLLAR! You need to use a body harness and clip to them in at the section that goes around their middle not their neck. If by chance they do fall from the bag, they would be fairly safe and you can safely pull over. If you connect to their neck they could choak or break their neck or even slip the collar and fall to the ground. The strap length in the bag depends on the size of the dog so measure carefully. What I did was to have the bag made to fit the bike, attach the strap to the clip on the dog then mark the spot in the bag where I wanted the strap stitched in.

Rockie has quite a bit of mobility within his bag. He can't fall off or jump off but he can sit up lay down and even tuck himself up in the bag if he gets cold or if it starts to rain. The flap on the bag is usually kept between 1/2 and 3/4 unzipped and folded back. On the freeway Rockie will often want to curl up out of the wind that comes in from the side or up from the front wheel. So I will flip the flap closed. I don't normally zip it unless it is raining then I zip it to about 1/4 open. This lets him poke his nose out if he wants without letting any water into the bag.