Switching from backpack to panniers?

[eminva]

I have the Novara panniers from REI and they work great for grocery shopping. They hold a ton of stuff.

Liz

[FFX_Hinterlands]

I use baskets on my commuting bike. I put a backpack in the basket. If it rains I put the backpack in a trash bag first (that looks very classy, I assure you).
This bike has a Wald basket zip tied to the front rack (from Rivendell) and two Wald folding baskets on the back.

[IMG]https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GrtZ7YfVa4PTyL19jZdnXmDHSCOYJLwAQdvUJLtuQlo?feat=directlink[/IMG]

[Greenbelt]

Thanks for all the thoughts. Last night, I was riding just ahead of a guy on Arundel Road just past Eastern Ave in Maryland. I heard this horrible sound behind me and doubled back to see if he was OK. He had lost a pannier on one of those (unmarked) speed bumps that I’m sort of accustomed to blasting over with my CX-style setup.

So given the cost, and the difficulty of teaching an old dog (me) new tricks, the issue of the laptop, and the fact that last week didn’t seem too bad, I’m going to stick with my tried and true backpack for now. We’ll see how it goes later this week — supposed to be very hot tomorrow and Thursday.

[Greenbelt]

Throwing a new video on an old thread.
[video=vimeo;28874075]http://vimeo.com/28874075[/video]

[paytonc]

Count me among those who have switched from wearing the weight to panniers. I have messenger bags and backpacks from by Chrome, Crumpler, Patagonia, et al, but they always left my back and shoulders sore and sweaty and my shirts wrinkled. My cousin the chiropractor would always scowl at me if she saw me wearing a messenger bag. Plus, in a suit-and-tie city, they look unprofessional.

I recently got an “Office-Bag” briefcase pannier from Ortlieb which is bigger than I need, but has solid/simple clips and is impermeable. (Apparently others are available in Germany, but this was the best one I could find from bike shops in several U.S. cities.) I usually only carry computers/tablets with solid-state drives inside, so bouncing around isn’t going to hurt anything. The rack itself has marginal weight, and I can easily track-stand with the bag on — somehow the weight distribution doesn’t matter.

[creadinger]

If you needed any other reasons to go with panniers over a backpack (I don’t know much about messenger bags) – My wife and I have been riding to the grocery store in Potomac Yard for weekly trips since we moved to the area in April. A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted a little more than just food, so I brought one of my panniers in the store and made sure one of the larger (with the tap on top) Newcastle mini-kegs would fit inside. It did! With room to spare even. So I got grabbed that, picked up the veggies, cheese, PB, milk and OJ I was supposed to get and rode home. My wife already thinks I’m insane so it wasn’t too much of a surprise when I got there.

Anyway, from my experience you’d need a pretty large backpack, and a stronger than normal back to comfortably carry a mini-keg plus 1.5 gallons of other liquid on your back. Being so used to hauling loaded panniers around, the extra weight wasn’t a problem.

[OneEighth]

Yes, but does it build character?
I lugged a cast iron dutch oven to the office for CFC one year…

[rcannon100]

As an old courier and commuter, I always use to lug my stuff in a backpack. Did I mention the “old” part. I began to feel it -bikers back – I had acquired some Transit Panniers for a trip and now use them for commuting. They are quite great – sort of like stuff bags – can get a tremendous amount in them.

Someone mentioned observing a commuter lose his panniers on a speed bump. That’s a problem; my old panniers fell off all the time. The new Transits strap on MUCH better and never budge. So yes, cheap panniers suffer fallage. A key feature is ease of strapping it on and off.

For a little while I continued to use a backpack to carry a laptop. I would strip all the weight out of the laptop — meaning the battery – put the weight in the pannier, and put the laptop in the backpack. I dont carry a laptop any more but I would not hesitate to put in my new panniers — and I am thinking about getting a netbook anyway.

[mstone]

I use a set of the Novarra transfer panniers, pretty cheap if you get them on sale, and fairly simple. They sort of snap on to the rack, and I’ve never had trouble with them falling off even on bumpy off-road trails. There are a few complaints about the clips breaking, but my best guess on that is that some people don’t read the directions and don’t remove the insert that sizes the clips for thin rack rails when they’re using thick rack rails. As others have said, they’re also great for getting a few gallons of milk, etc., from the store. I probably wouldn’t use them for long-distance touring, but for commuting and shopping they’re great.

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