Hey all,
Now this is my kinda day! It's raining out, my wife's outta town, and I got all this crap to put on my bike!
I begin with the Touratech side racks. Remove the grab handles and passenger pegs. If your dealer didn't install the grab handles, you'll have to remove the rear fender and drill the holes yourself. This alone should motivate ALL buyers of 690's to ask the dealer to install the grab handles. They should do it anyway--if they don't they're just being lazy. Also, even if you don't plan to use them, make sure they give you the passenger pegs.
It's pretty straightforward at this point. Drop in the spacers and loosely screw it all in.
Now attach the rear cross bar.
BTW: those black things on the rack are the mounts for my Pawnee Plate by Wolfman. It's for carrying a Rotopax. I'll go into that in another post.
Once you're to this point, the Touratech instructions will tell you to tighten all the connections. I'm gonna install a top rack, so I leave them all loose.
The Nomadic Rack is actually two pieces; a small bracket bolts to the bottom of the main rack. Leave these bolts loose until everything else is done. Once the plate is assembled loosely, remove the bolts from the top holes of the Touratech rack. Place the Nomadic Rack atop the Touratech rack and align the holes. Goo the bolt up with locktite and secure the top rack directly atop the Touratech rack. It fits like they were made for each other.
Everything feels very solid. In fact, it feels like a roll cage for the bike. I wouldn't hesitate using this rack as a grab handle or a tie-down. Despite being made of stainless steel, the side racks seem very light. Conversely, despite being made of aluminum, the top rack feels a bit heavy. The installation was straightforward and the mounting hardware seems high-quality. I look forward to mounting a set of Wolfman Expedition bags on this and exploring Canada this summer.