Ortlieb Panniers
 

Has anyone used the Ortlieb side panniers for touring? I have the pushbike ones and there pretty much indestructable due to the simple roll down design. really was wondering how the clip system held up on a motorbike?

I have used both ortlieb bicycle panniers and ortlieb motorcycle panniers - and I would NOT recommend either.

The pushbike panniers are not tough enough for motorcycle falls ... the plastic clips snap and break. When a 10 kg bicycle goes down at 10 km/h and falls on the pannier and stressing the pannier clips its very different from a 150 - 250 kg motorcycle going down - at perhaps 60 km/h. They snap off real fast.

The motorcycle luggage is plagued by poor straps that are neither long enough nor tough enough. Most bikes need a home made link piece to situate them over pannier racks. The stitching where the straps attaches to the bags will rip out before too long, especially if you do any off road, sending your bag cartwheeling down the road behind you, and making the other bag fall off as well.

As far as their roll travel bags go - I think they are the benchmark product for the back of the motorbike, but their results with side panniers is the exact opposite. Terrible stuff. They just dont make anything suitable for adventure motorcycling when it comes to panniers.

Its a shame they dont make em so well for motorbikes. The roll down ones i use on my mountain bike are the best i've come across for cycling. simplicity of design, totally waterproof, tough and fixable. seems all they need for motorcycle travel is a decent connection system. reckon i'll make my own connection system and attach it to my roll down cycle ones, i'll let you know how it goes!

Take a look at these:
Enduristan - Monsoon Soft Panniers

they are what i'm investing in for my next adventure, I looked at many soft panniers and decided on them. The designs appear similar to ortlieb but is more suited the the rigors of off the beaten track biking.

My motorcycle ortliebs have been fine, the straps over the seat/top are plenty long enough on my two suzukis, might not be on a wider BM though! I wish the straps were different where it connects to rear pegs or such like, as there is too much movement for my liking, and the strap excess is to long, I have to cable tie these out the way, which makes removing the bags quickly a PITA. Had no problems what so ever with waterproofness. They do the job well. Not really suitable for hoiking off the bike every night, easier to leave them on.

If they go anywhere near or above your exhaust, invest or bodge a heat shield though. It doesn't take a lot to make a hole in these, as an officer of the law pointed out to me with frantic hand signals whilst passing on a motorway.

What proportions of tarmac/rough stuff do you intend using them for?

Ive looked at the enduristan panniers online, they do look a bit more up for it than the ortlieb ones. check out the bmw f650gs review over on the which bike section, there's a link there to a review of the endurisans.

its not the throw over ones i was looking at, ortlieb have started making a side clipping pannier that clips onto the frame in much the same way as the ones they make for push bikes. i have the push bike ones and to be honest cant ever imagine wearing them out, but take colebatches point that this clip system may not be up to having a heavy bike slammed ontop of it.

In answer to your question fern im not sue what % road/tarmac. in all honesty the trip to N africa will be 100% tarmac but when i get there who knows! i hate looking at a track leading off somewhere and thinking i cant go.

what bikes have you got the panniers on fern?

They are very good. I drove 40K km through Africa with them without any problems. The only thing I changed before I left home, where the straps that goes under the seat. I putted more stronger and longer ones to them. I had a large number of falls and with the exception of a few small holes, there was nothing wrong with the bags.

http://www.ortlieb.de/art/large/m2201.jpg

Hello,
I have the Orlieb bags now for about 60 or 70.000km, in mixed terrain
and the are still good.
I did have to stitch a hole, and i did not had a fall on tarmac or rocks,only on muddy roads.
So i will buy them again!!!
For the hard core offroader there might be something else that is better and stronger.
But the Orlieb are simple and good in my opinion.

Saludos.

Rone, do you use them straight over the seat or over a rack to keep them away from the exauhst?

Years ago I used the same set of Ortlieb throw-overs more or less the same as those pictured above on a couple of longish trips through NW Africa, with loads of off-tarmac - they lasted both trips with no problems and I gave them to a friend afterwards. As far as I know they're still in use.

I didn't use pannier racks to isolate them from the silencer on either occasion - on trip 1 there was a foil isolating pad under the bike's side panel as standard. On trip 2 I had side tanks fitted. On trip 1 I used the thin strap at the top/back to attach the panniers to the small luggage rack behind the seat and there were two thin straps on the lower/front corners of the panniers that I attached to the passenger footrest brackets. The two thick straps went over the seat.

I would recommend these panniers :thumbup1:

HERE you can see my rack ... it is in dutch, but I think the pictures speak for them self ;-)

I'm not a fan of the Ortleiobs either, not keen on the mounting straps. I ended up with Wolfman bags on my 690 fitted to TT racks as the Wolfman racks were expensive and lacked strength IMHO. I did however copy the bag mounting design of the Wolfman racks and added it to the TT racks plus a mount for a Tooltube. The main benefit is that you can safely carry just the one bag if needed, it's independant of the other bag although there are substantial over the straps iof you're using both bags.

The Wolfman's clip in to the stainless steel loops welded to the outside of the pannier frame:

http://possu.smugmug.com/Motorcycles.../IMG0246-M.jpg