New guy with 2016 air-cooled T100 black saddle bag question

[Blackie100]

Hi there. Bought new 2 years ago. Seems that all catalogs show the 2016 as water cooled, so I order 2015 parts and that seems to work. Anyway. I bought some nice through-over saddle bags. I plan to get the OEM pannier rails to keep them off of the rear springs. Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[BonnieBlack]

The OEM rails are great. Work really well and look fine with the bags off. Your bike will with work with rails from any year of an SE or T-100 air-cooled Bonnie.

I have OEM rails on one of my Bonnies and eBay ones on my other. Ebay ones have this long bolt at the top that worried me, because I thought it would give if the bike went down. But the bike did and the bolt didn't. Rails themselves bent, but bent back into shape just fine. You'd probably be fine with aftermarket ones off eBay honestly.

OEM saddlebags themselves aren't so great IMO.