The Base Plate is the first piece of our hardware that gets mounted to your Moto and serves as the receiver for all of our racking systems, be it bicycle, golf, luggage, etc. Our racking systems are designed to work plug-and-play style with any of our base plates (as well as our Harley and Indian mounts) so if you were to ever switch your activity, you don’t need to repurchase the entire racking system itself.
Classic vs. Custom Fitment
What's the difference?
First, "Install style" refers specifically to what we call the Base Plate. This is the beginning of the 2x2 Cycles racking system.
For example: You purchased a Vert Rack for your KLR 650 and 6 months down the road, you decided to pick up golfing. Well, instead of purchasing the entire rack, you can view our Attachment Kits and simply pick up the Golf Carrier Attachment Kit to plug into the base plate you received with your Vert Rack.
Our base plates are all made out of heavy gauge steel with precision laser cuts. We do our own hand welding to mount the receiver tube on all our Base Plates (and Harley/Indian mounts). This receiver tube is also very thick gauge steel for maximum strength. With the similarities covered, let’s focus in on the Classic Base Plate first.
THE CLASSIC BASE PLATE
Designed specifically for aftermarket luggage racks.
You’ll often come across plenty of tubular style luggage or flat racks when looking for luggage options on your Moto. These provide a very convenient location for our Classic Base Plate to mount to. The preceding image shows an example of what the Classic Base Plate looks like, along with some of its measurements.
These measurements provide a lot of flexibility in how you can mount the Classic Base Plate to your existing luggage rack. If you can check these measurements against the hardware you have and find that it can work for you, we always advise going with the Classic Base Plate. The reason for this is pretty simple: The Classic Base Plate (3.5 lbs) weighs half the weight of the Custom Base Plate (7 lbs) and is less expensive!
Note: We provide either u-bolts (for tubular luggage racks) or a standard set of 4, 8mm bolts for flat luggage racks. If you are mounting to a flat luggage rack, you will likely need to drill some holes that correspond to the mill slots of our Classic Plate.
MEASUREMENTS:
- 5.5″ wide
- 11.75″ in length (specifically the mounting surface)
- 2, 9.5″ long mill slots
- 8mm wide mill slots
- 2.75″ center-center distance between the mill slots
THE CUSTOM BASE PLATE
Designed to install directly to your Motos hardware.
The Custom Base Plate comes in to account for all the other scenarios that the above Classic Base Plate doesn’t work for. If your Moto doesn’t have an OEM luggage rack or you don’t have an aftermarket luggage rack that works with the dimensions of the Classic Base Plate, it’s time for a custom fitment. As you can see from the image, the Custom Base Plate shares the same length as the Classic Base Plate when it comes to the mounting surface, but it has a 12” width. You’ll also notice that the Custom Base Plate in the photo has NO holes drilled in it. Please understand that the Custom Base Plate you receive from us WILL have holes drilled in it to fit your Moto, hence the “Custom Fitment”.
Choosing the Custom Fitment option ensures you receive a rack that is set up specifically to mount to your motorcycle. We have hundreds of templates covering the vast majority of motorcycles out there, so we know the proper bolt locations to drill for. The Custom Fitment option also comes with custom bolting hardware to facilitate mounting the Base Plate to your Moto.
Note: In some instances, we utilize Givi hardware to facilitate the mounting of our Custom Base Plate for specific Moto’s that require additional hardware for strengthening purposes. If your Moto already has Givi hardware on it, you will want a Custom Base Plate (predrilled to match Givi’s hardware). Please let us know if you’re mounting to Givi hardware in your order notes.
MEASUREMENTS:
- 12″ wide
- 11.75″ in length (specifically the mounting surface)
Still have questions?
If you’re unsure which fitment style you should choose, feel free to reach out! We can be contacted via phone, text, email, live chat, or even this handy contact form!
One last thing to note regarding that contact form. In this day and age where it feels like every company out there is selling your data to some other company as soon as you start typing, let it be known that we hate this practice. Your personal information will NEVER be sold to a third party nor will it be used for endless, weekly marketing emails from us. We use this information solely to contact you regarding your questions. We handmake racks and sell racks, not user data.
Chapman!