Top box, Givi, Shad or maybe something else?

[Gone in 60]

While we're talking about different sized and shaped Givi boxes, I pulled up a post I put on the ADV forum, discussing the topic. As it happens, today I'm rocking "The Weber", as I'm meeting up with friends for a movie after work, and since it's hot, I need room for a helmet and my jacket before I walk away from the bike in a movie theater parking lot. By the way, gonna see the original Terminator in 70mm at an art house theater. Sweet! Monologue is as follows:

"It's like minivans. I don't find any of them pretty... but man are they practical. And they keep stuff locked up and safe when you walk away from them. There's a dead thread somewhere on here about attempts to reverse-engineer the "female" side of a Givi mount to attach to anything you'd want to lock to a Givi rack. This would allow you to put the box-end of the hardware on anything you'd like and securely attach to a Givi rack. I'd love to put a Halliburton style aluminum briefcase on the back of my bikes on days when I'm not hauling a ton of stuff.

But, as it is, I spend 95% of my adulting time on my bikes, which means that I'm carrying varying amounts of real-world stuff and need to walk away from the bike to do it. So I'm a big fan of the practicality and security of Givi boxes. Get home or to the office, hit a button and it pops off so you can carry it in with all of your stuff. My bikes are for transportation over style, so I can stomach the looks. But why can't they make one that doesn't look like the back of a car, a space ship, or a blob?

I have three, ranging from small to large depending on what my daily chores require. They range from:

The Samsonite - the E36. The only Monokey they make that doesn't feature fake taillights. At least it looks like a 70s hard suitcase, and sorta fits my "modern classic" bikes


The Weber - the V40 not only looks like a charcoal barbecue, it features fake taillights.


The Acura - my largest, the V47, will hold a weekend's worth of stuff, and features aluminum trim and four fake taillights."