Originally Posted by
staehpj1
I hear this a lot and it strikes me as an odd comment. Since it seems to be said so often perhaps my take on is what is odd. Any way I personally am about as weight conscious in packing for touring as backpacking or maybe just slightly less so, but volume seems practically unlimited when bike touring. I use smallish panniers on front and back and strap stuff on top of the rack as needed or desired and never wanted to carry anything that was too bulky to fit. There is always extra space in my panniers. I could find panniers with twice the volume, but can't imagine needing the space.
+1. The dangerous thing with loaded bike touring is the amount of volume front and rear panniers, a handle bar bag and the top of the rack provide. The total can add up to between 75 and 100 Liters that are just begging to have sleeping bags and everything including the kitchen sink stuffed into them. Just as in backpacking the best way to lighten the load is to limit volume. So I'm going to answer the OP's question in two completely different ways. If you want to maximize the amount of space you have in your panniers put the sleeping bag in a compression sack, but if you are having difficulty putting the bag in the sack supplied it must be pretty compressed in that sack already. On the other hand if you want to reduce weight just stuff the bag in the panniers, it will take up volume so you can't pack as much stuff.
