Accessory Research Engineering???

[ole496]

I have a 2-up hydro-gel seat with a neat adjustable backrest and a fiberglass rear trunk on my bike. I located a sticker on the bottom of each that say Accessory Research Engineering from White Bear Lake, MN. Does anyone have any other accessories from this company? If you do post a pic, I'd love to see other items they manufactured seeing as how I'm from MN. I'd love to hear any information you may have about this company. I like to know the history of stuff. I found nothing while searching on google or ebay. Thanks.

Here's a couple of pics of my bike with the seat and trunk on the back. The saddles are from Bates.

[hacksaw1945]

I have the same tour pack as you but I need a key for mine. Is your key a stamped out one or one that has been cut by a key making machine? I want to think this was a stamped from sheet steel. I bought this pack at a garage sale 18yr ago here in Wisconsin. I have seen alot of these packs

[ole496]

I have two keys for mine but the latch is broken. I need a replacement of some sort for it to be functional. The PO used a bungee to hold the lid down. The key looks to be from a key making machine. If you think one of my keys would work on your luggage, I'd be happy to send you one to make a copy? I'd like to keep the keys in case I engineer a fix for the latch.

[Whiskerfish]

A.R.E. is a manufacturer of truck caps. The cap I had on my Tundra was ARE. I wonder if there is any connection ??

[ole496]

Whisker, I'm not sure on that but you could be onto something. I found the A.R.E. website and they have a brief company history on there. Nothing mentioned on there about being from MN. They moved their plant to Ohio in the early 80's so it's possible they could have had roots in MN.

[Brant]

It almost looks like that small backrest, below the passenger pad on the trunk, may rotate forward and serve as a driver backrest.

[ole496]

Yes Brant, you are correct. That is a small backrest. It ratches forward in increments. You can't use it though 2-up, it's too wide and would hit the passengers legs.

[ole496]

The backrest moves close enough to push you forward in the seat. However the stock handlebars are not quite long enough to lean back into the backrest. I still have to lean into the bars a bit and I'm 6'0" tall.