Hard or soft luggage? - Page 2

**iswoolley** · #16 15 Nov 2001

I too use the Oxford soft panniers with plastic buckles, for a trip to Morocco on an XT600E last Easter. After several days of bouncing around the Atlas mountains the plastic buckles on first one side, then the other, snapped. It wasn't really a problem, as enough of the buckle survived to re-tie the panniers to the bike, but did cause me to backtrack about 5km to find the wayward pannier by the side of the piste!

In the future I'm going to try out the Zega boxes, to see how they compare.

Iain.

'01 XRV750

**andygray** · #17 17 Nov 2001

Soft luggage is my choice and for all of you in England: I used ex army bags ( the large ones) Only cost 15 quid a pair, waterproof, taken many a crash in their stride but need a rack to support them.
Cheap and durable unlike most of the specialist bike accsesories.
Top box is a good idea for those expensive items
andy

**fireboomer** · #18 19 Nov 2001

Out of an experience just a couple weeks ago:
* Hard panniers take the force of a crash, and yes so wil the backpart of your bike, but your legs will have some extra space without getting stuck under the bike in a crash. The pannier itself is scratched, but I was happy that I could hop on my bike again and ride on.

I have a Honda Transalp with 2 side-panniers from Honda.They look nice, but are probable not ideal for long trips on dirt roads and pistes wihtout any modifications.
I will put extra straps around them to avoid them getting banged off on bumpy roads. Since there is only one key-lock, the straps will also be an extra safety to keep them from opening while driving.
If I had know about those great aluminium boxes I would probably have bought a set of those. That will be for the next one.

**Julio** · #19 8 Dec 2001

The cheapest options for metal panniers that I have seen are:

1) Swiss Army Ammo boxes £20.00 each but you need to make a rack
2) Darr panniers £50.00 each

Have looked at making my own but more hassle than its worth.

I chose touratech panniers as they are built very well and are cheaper than Hepcko(Not sure of spelling) Am having my racks hand built as don't like the way that the stadard rack works.

If anyone wants to see pick of the 2 options shown a above, drop me a line as have piccies of these fitted.

Julio

**Kurt** · #20 11 Dec 2001

What the heck, I'll wade into the eternal question and keep this topic going. I use Ortleib soft bags on my KLR. They're fairly cheap (<$200) and totally waterproof: some kind of rubber impregnated fabric. I bent a pot in a crash last year but otherwise have had no problems.

A friend made some cases from army surplus ammo cases (the really big stuff) but they are VERY heavy. They were cheap (but you need a rack to bolt them to) and are nearly indestructable (thanks to Uncle Sam's generosity with our tax dollars) and waterproof.

Kurt