I received this query from Peter Horsfield, referring to my photos at [www.crypticide.com] :-

Alec,

I found your site by accident (looking for Baglux info).

I have just bought a tank harness for my R1200GS and your hand? How did you attach the harness (to what parts of the bike)? The pictures show a very neat and tidy fitting but, not having any instructions, I’m a bit puzzled by how you fitted yours.

Cheers

Peter Horsfield.

To answer in public, since there’s no reason not to:

I found your site by accident (looking for Baglux info).

Hi Peter! I presume you found the UKGSer’s site?

I have just bought a tank harness for my R1200GS and was interested to see your photos. What is the large “O” ring in the palm of your hand?

That turned out to be the retaining band for the 12GS’s manual, which is meant to sit behind the T-piece under the seat, above the battery, by my index finger in the photo.

How did you attach the harness (to what parts of the bike)? The pictures show a very neat and tidy fitting but, not having any instructions, I’m a bit puzzled by how you fitted yours.

Ditto, I had a challenge too, until I saw a few others at bike shows, etc. 😎

What I did was as follows; you may choose to do differently:

1. Picked a warm day and let the cover rest in the sunlight for a while, to soften it.

2. Removed the plastic side-fairings (per side: 2x D-clips + 1x rather delicate / fiddly screw mounting, inside, down by the fork stanchions – also taking care with the “clips” along the top edge of the plastic)

3. Removed the black plastic wing-mountings – the plug-in ones that are visible at the bottom of [www.crypticide.com] and which succumb to gentle pulling, taking care to not damage the rubber grommets into which they clip.

4. In the fairing there are screws which correspond to the holes that are punched in the front of the tankcover; I undid the screws, and inserted/retightened them carefully after pushing them through the tankcover holes. This fixed the cover to the bike.

5. Being very careful not to trap any cables or hoses, I passed the widest of the front straps down, and around the underside of the headstock, and up the other side, cinching it gently in the corresponding plastic clip.

   This pulls the area around the fuelcap ring, forwards and downwards. There is no point in pulling this or any of the other straps tight, yet, since it all needs a little tweaking.

6. Again being very careful not to trap any cables or hoses, I passed the narrow left-hand strap down, under the headstock, and cinched it off using the clip on the righthand side, repeating the process for the other strap, right to left.

   Again, there is no point in doing more than taking-up the slack and making the straps barely tight.

7. The rearwards pair of sidestraps undo, looping down, behind, and up in front of some substantial black frame pipework, and then the excess strap comes up and goes through the push-clip.

8. Regarding the forwards pair of sidestraps – I am not so sure about these; I found that they clip nicely over the lips/edge of the aluminium side-panels, but there in an awful lot of strap left excess; that said, I don’t have them loadbearing, since for me they serve just to keep the sides of the tankcover, taut.

9. Cinched everything taut but not tight, using the fuelcap as a referent – the Baglux manual says that it takes some days for the PVC to “give” and so I just check/adjust it every so often, to take-up any looseness. This is happening less-and-less frequently. 😎

10. Replaced the various panels, taking great care with the placement of the three clips for each of the major side-panels; It does all go together, but don’t force anything, and check your work. There are stories of clips not being redon right, and panels blowing-off at speed.

I hope this helps. Drop me a line again if not.