Rear crash/tipover bars?

[Grumpy Goat]

I'll think about what you said about the panniers. Maybe some really thick/tough material could be temporarily attached to the panniers to take the abrasion of the parking lot asphalt. Anything come to mind?

My comments are based on crash experience, both with my fully loaded RS (2016) and my S1000R (2020). The RS crash saw the bike go down at essentially zero speed and the right cylinder head and right pannier kept the bike off the ground and pinning me. At that speed, it was a very effective injury preventer.

Naturally the pannier was replaced as was the right cylinder outwards and other stuff. If those crash bars were on they would have likely bent the frame. A bent frame means the bike is a write off.

Any material you add to the panniers would have to be like the MachineArt Moto (MaMo) engine guards, which have a thick harder durometer rubber capped with a tough plastic layer. The plastic layer would allow some slide so that the protection is not "scraped off". The rubber is for impact protection. Would probably look ugly as hell.

If you're concerned with parking lot grade crashes / bike drops then maybe some sort of temporary protection on the pannier lids would be effective.