Every Mile Leaves a Legacy

Most riders have a piece of gear they'd never trade. The jacket that's been through three summers of rain and sun. The boots that finally broke in somewhere around year two. Neither looked like much on day one. They earned their place one ride at a time.

That's the standard we hold our bags to.

The Gear You'd Never Trade

Go look in your garage. There's a jacket on a hook that's faded at the shoulders where the sun hits it every afternoon on the ride home. There's a pair of gloves shaped so exactly to your hands that a new pair feels like wearing somebody else's. There's a helmet with a scuff you could tell a story about, if anybody asked.

None of that came from the store. You put it there. Every rainstorm you didn't pull over for, every long day in the saddle, every rally where the gear sat in the sun outside the campground. That's what turns stuff into your stuff.

Riders know the difference between gear that wears out and gear that wears in. The first kind gets thrown away after a season. The second kind gets better every year you ride it, until the day it's the thing you'd grab first if the garage were on fire.

We wanted to build bags that end up in that second pile.

Ten Years, in Writing

Every DEADBOLT product is backed by a 10-year limited warranty. We don't offer that because it looks good on a hang tag. We offer it because we built these bags to outlast the miles you're going to put on them, and we'd rather tell you that up front.

Think about what ten years of riding actually looks like. Ten first-rides-of-the-season. Ten winters with the battery tender plugged in. A few Sturgis runs, maybe a Daytona or two, a long weekend on the Ortega every time the weather turns good. A tune, a set of pipes, probably a seat you finally got right.

Maybe a different bike somewhere in there, too. Bikes come and go over ten years. The bags don't have to. Every DEADBOLT bag fits every DEADBOLT rail, so when the next Softail rolls into the garage, you rail it up and the same bags drop right on.

Here's What Holds Up

Here's what holds up:

• The leather. Daytona and Laguna are cut from 3/16-inch Italian full-grain leather. It softens with use, darkens in the sun, and carries the marks of the roads you've ridden. A few seasons in, it looks better than it did out of the box.

• The structure. An 18-gauge steel plate runs the full length and width of the back of each leather bag, so it keeps its shape instead of sagging over time.

• The connection. The attachment plate locks onto the rail with eight points of contact, on the first ride and the thousandth.

What 3/16 of an Inch Means

Pick up a cheap leather bag and you can feel it right away. Thin, floppy, finished with a coating that does most of the work. Full-grain leather cut 3/16 of an inch thick is a different animal. It has body. It takes a hit from a boot or a gravel lot and keeps going. And because it's full grain, the top of the hide left intact, there's no coating to wear through, just leather that keeps getting richer.

Why the Plate Matters

Most leather bags don't fail. They sag. One summer they're sharp, and by the next they've slumped against the fender like they're tired of the whole thing. An 18-gauge steel plate across the full back of the bag is why ours hold their line, packed for a week or carrying nothing but a rain suit.

The Thousandth Ride

The first time you drop a DEADBOLT bag on the rail and hear it lock, it feels new. By the thousandth time it should feel like nothing at all, because it does exactly what it did the first time. Eight points of contact, every time, at every gas stop, every motel, every year.

What Ten Years Covers

We'd rather be straight with you about what a warranty means.

The 10-year limited warranty covers defects in material and workmanship for the first owner, for ten years from the date of invoice. If something covered goes wrong, we repair or replace it.

It doesn't cover the things that are supposed to happen to good gear: ordinary wear and tear, and the natural color changes in the leather. Honestly, that color change is the point. It also doesn't cover damage from shipping or storage, alterations, or abuse.

If you ever need to make a claim, email us with your order number and photos of the issue, and we'll take it from there. Full terms are on our warranty page.

Broken In, Not Worn Out

A cheap bag gets replaced. A good one gets broken in. We build ours to be the second kind.

Ten years is a lot of miles. Go put them on.