Yeah, I'm pretty mechanically minded, I built my KTM from the ground up, so fiddling with straps in the sweltering heat in Mexico in full kit wasn't something that I was willing to accept. Those Wolfman bags were very quick to take on and off once you establish an order of operations.


And here goes the soft vs. hard pannier conversation...

I can agree to that. If they want to get into an aluminum pannier, a hammer and a screwdriver would be an easy way. A bike cover can also add some security, although if you roll up into a central park in a town in Honduras on a "big" bike on a Saturday afternoon, there will easily be 100 eyes on you, so putting a cover on it won't really do much. I still feel that a set of hard cases would put my mind more at ease. I've yet to ride with them, so for now, it's only a supposition.

I do remember having a conversation with Daniel Rintz, (the rtw traveler and filmmaker) while we were in Guate together for about a month. He had the Touratech panniers on his GS. I asked him about hard vs soft luggage and he stood by hard luggage for rtw travel. He's very much like me in thought process, and I think that he made a good argument for hard cases, with safety and ease of use being at the top of the list. For a TAT ride, I'd go soft, for a trip through the Americas, then it'd have to be a set of aluminum boxes for me.