Touring - Ortlieb Rack Adapters

For those of you who use Ortlieb panniers... I have a pair of the Ortlieb Back Roller Plus panniers. They come with little U-shaped adapters to allow the QL2 system to fit different sized rack tubing.

I need to use the middle sized (10mm) adapters on mine to fit the tubes on my cheap rack (this is for my commuter). I can get the adapters in, and they fit fine and don't move around when the panniers are mounted, but when I remove the pannier from the rack, about 1/2 the time the adapter stays on the rack. I know that sooner or later I won't notice this and the adapter will get lost.

There is a .pdf file on the Ortlieb Germany website:

http://www.ortlieb.de/_anleit/backrollerplus.pdf

It shows inserting the little insert/adapters with a "KLICK". I have fiddled with mine, and they don't "KLICK". The little nub on the adapter is in the slot on the mount (it won't move side to side), but they don't lock in there securely enough to keep them from staying on the rack when I remove the pannier.

What's the secret to getting them to stay in place? I could glue them in, but I want to be able to remove them easily to allow mounting on other racks. There must be some trick to this I am just not getting!

Thanks!

Michael

I figured it out. They don't KLICK by pushing them upwards, they KLICK by pushing them outwards. I got all four to KLICK, and now they stay in when I remove the panniers from the rack.

I *knew* it had to be me and not the Germans that was the problem. ;-)

Thanks for the update. I use the adaptors too for my Norco Axiom Tour du Monde rack. I haven't experienced the problems you described but I might have been lucky when I put in the adaptors.

~Jamie N

Hey Michael

If you ever loose one or they start giving you trouble, try using the panniers without them. That's where I've been since day one and I'm as happy as can be.

I bought the last pair in stock, not displays since all stock is normally displayed. Got home and started reading the instructions to find I was missing the adapters. Called the store and they didn't have them. Shared my grief with a number of other Ortlieb users and got a bunch of input like "Don't even bother with those things!"

So I went ahead on our 1,000 mile tour without them. About 2,300 miles on them now not missing the adapters one bit. One less thing to bother with.

Cheers

Yeah, I'm sure they'd stay on without the adapters, the adapters just keep them a little tighter on the rack.