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Hard Panniers ? Hard Panniers ?
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Photo by George Guille, It's going to be a long 300km... Bolivian Amazon

I haven't been everywhere...
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Photo by George Guille
It's going to be a long 300km...
Bolivian Amazon



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  #1  
Old 25 Sep 2001
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Hard Panniers ?
Having followed the recent thread about hard panniers not being any good and being replaced by soft ones on the road has anyone got anything good to say about hard panniers.

I am on the edge of buying a pair of Touratech Zega Panniers with Touratech fitting kit and a Hepco & Becker pannier ring - design and build the fitting rack my self for extra strength.

In the short term it is to ride my XTZ660 round Ireland and then trips round europe, in the long term I want to head off in an Australia/Newzealand direction - if the Afgan section ever opens again, if not south america and ship it over to Aus and NZ.

Are they actually any good? - All sorts of roads and tracks expected.

Are there any other ones out there which are better - I really want the security of leaving a loaded bike to allow me to explore without finding somewhere else to lock u my kit.

PLUS:

Has anyone used the PacSafe kits yet? They have just released a DuffleSafe which totally encapsulates a bag - I though about using this as an additional method of locking a bag to the top rack.

All your thoughts and experience please to help me come to a decision.....

Thanks, Tony.
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  #2  
Old 9 Oct 2001
d d is offline
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Gidday Tony,

I am using ZEGA-boxes together with the TOURATECH-rack on my BMW F650. I have done almost 30,000km on them on all kinds of roads and also at high speed here in South America in the last seven months and I highly recommend them! When I bought the boxes second-hand they had already travelled for about 80,000km with a mate of mine and had survived well a few falls with him.

However, I exchanged half of the screws of the original mountings with some longer ones. These go throw the whole mounting set (from inside going outsides) and are locked with some nuts.

Ciao, d
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  #3  
Old 10 Oct 2001
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I'm personally all in favour of hard boxes, primarily for security. It IS very nice to be able to walk away with reasonable confidence that everything will still be there when you get back.

For this reason alone I wouldn't consider travelling with softbags.

Also I think hard bags are better for handling, as they don't flop and wiggle around as much on windy bumpy roads - assuming a good mount system!

As to which box is the BEST, there's a lot of personal opinion on that. I find most of them are too "fat", excessively increasing the width of the bike. I would look for skinnier ones myself, but there isn't much. Most of the bags are made in Germany, and it seems that the "fat look" is "in" there.

At least try very hard to mount yours in close and as a tightly as possible. It may even be worth a cutout in a box to be able to tuck it in tighter. Balance the effort to the gain...

Good luck,

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  #4  
Old 10 Oct 2001
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My faves, based purely on brochure browsing, are the Al Jesses - the Millennium, not the new Odyssey. Setting aside the small matter of price for a moment, would you consider these to be the ultimate? I like their capacity, narrowness and low weight distribution - but what happens when you crash them repeatedly?
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  #5  
Old 14 Oct 2001
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I have used Touratech panniers as well as soft panniers for touring. The soft panniers (Oxford )broke in Spain when we hit a deep pothole and fell onto the exhaust.

I would only overland with hard pannier for security aspects. remember soft pannier are eaily slashed.

The Darr boxes are very good value for money too.

Good luck

Julio
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  #6  
Old 14 Oct 2001
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Crashing with ally panniers is not recommended...

They can end up badly mangled if you crash them hard, but they can usually be adequately repaired in the field by anyone with a little bodywork experience, or even by an owner with a hammer.

They are surprisingly tough, at least when full, as the tightly packed contents increase the strength substantially.

Note that if you are planning on a really serious off-road expedition with lots of crashing, softbags might be better - and you want your hospital insurance to be all paid up, and helicopter airlift insurance, and well... maybe when you're in darkest Africa you'll want to adjust your riding so that regular crashes at speed are unlikely to be part of the equation...

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  #7  
Old 30 Oct 2001
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Hi. We just completed a 60000km RWT over 16 months on an NTV650. We used 41l Zega boxes mounted on Hepco Becker pannier frames and we highly recommend them. On one occaision I crashed one of the boxes into a bollard at walking pace practially destroying it. The pannier frames were untouched and the box was adequately repaired with a rock, couple of hammers and some chemical metal. Its no longer waterproof but it is still secure. Being able to just leave the bike with our gear while sightseeing made for a far more relaxing trip than would have been the case with soft panniers.

Stephan and Chenda
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