Givi bags are here!

I got my Givi bags in the mail the other day, hurray!

I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t need to bring three weeks of crap with me to Alaska; I can bring only one week of crap and just do laundry twice. This is a very happy thought.

I’m getting together with Steph and Linda this weekend to do random bike stuff, including putting the SW Motech Quick-Lock siderack mounts on the SVS. The mounts attach to the bike permanently, but the sideracks can be removed until I want to use the Givi bags. This seems ideal for me — the mounts are non-obtrusive while using the SVS for daily commutes/short trips, but I can easily attach the hard bags for longer trips.

Naturally, my only set of instructions are in German. I’ve already run them through Babelfish, and thus have a sort-of idea of kind of what I might be doing. I’m hoping that between myself, Linda, and Steph, we can get the things on my bike rightside-up and everything.

I’m unintentionally learning a lot of German lately, between the sideracks and working on a software project for our German carrier partner. Today I learned that Kopieren means “copy” and Abmelden is “log off”. I’ve also learned that Mutter means both “mother” and “nut” (as in, what fits on a bolt). Strauber is “to screw”, in the hardware sense, not the vulgar. The fun literally never ends.