I have order from those guys atlaspanniers very good quality,good price for welding alouminium panniers no holes no bolts no nothing....

When i put them in my varadero i willpost some pics!!

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3mountainsadventure

As the title of this thread is specific about alloy panniers I'll keep to them. If you want the best get metal mules no questions. No other alloy pannier has the same build quality and design.

BMW and touratech alloy, made of soft aluminium and don't have over lapping lids, so when it drops it bends (read squashes) and then leaks.

Trax/sw motech same but even less robust

Jesses built like a tank but the mounting system flawed, perfect for cruising the highway but forget it you are going off road Forget it.

Stalkoffer not experienced but at least have overlapping lid from what I have seen, unsure of mounting system

Ardcases, tried my best to destroy one of these and failed, great value for money

Happy Trails, did what they say on the tin, survived 8 RTW with at least 1 crash and a few drops.

For anyone thinking of buying alu panniers first decide are the for highway use only, if so any will do, or will you be roughing it, gravel roads, potholes, boulders, bike drops, remember the mounting system is as important as the pannier, how precious will your cargo be? Do you want it strewn all over the road when the lid falls off or it collapses in a minor off. You probably won't mind if it leaks if only used at weekends or a week in the alps, might get a bit annoying on a RTW.

You pays your money and takes your choice.

I just bought my panniers from Atlas panniers...And i love them.





The best thing is that they fit in my GIVI bars (with no problem) so the cost stay low....

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3mountainsadventure

As you can see you don't need much of a workshop to fix them ,these are touratech and as I posted before they saved me and the bike.

I think Panniers are a personal choice, I have noticed a lot of brave people putting a lot of effort in to geting there opinion across as to which is best Soft or Hard, someone even mentioned a few people who use soft ones but I could name another 50 people who use hard cases. I personally use both but depends on where & what trip I am on, if I am on a relatively short one ie: 4 weeks or less I would use the soft ones, but any longer I prefer the hard panniers as I like to carry things on top of them like chairs & food etc. The biggest issue that I have seen on serious travel is not the panniers being hard or soft but the size of the bike ! At least 1/2 the people I come across have fallen prey to an image rather than reality, & really struggle with there bikes regardless of what panniers they have.
Cheers
Paul

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....rather Die Living.....than Live Dying !
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