Commuting - Got honked at - and happy about it

My @%#$^*! pannier fell off, and I hadn't noticed. Took two or three drivers trying to get my attention before I figured out what was going on.

I was riding through a construction zone, down to 1 lane with alternating directions, and the flagger let me go first. (They're good guys.) I generally go as fast as possible and usually have a fair distance between me and the cars coming behind by the time I hit a good shoulder area. Unfortunatly, about halfway through the construction, I hit a slight bump (hit it a zillion times before), and my bag took a dive without letting me know about it. With a slight downhill, I was almost 1/5 mile down the road before my ears connected what they were yelling and honking about on their way by.

Then it tried to come off at the light a little farther on. No provocation that I know about.

Then it fell off as I was turning into the parking lot at work, on even less provocation than before (very slight bump coming off the road onto the sidewalk ramp) and this time hooked the rack and dragged along behind until I was able to come to a stop.

Pity's sake! I've been using one of my Sunlite Traveler 2's which has a good combination of space, pockets, and ease of access for me, but terrible when it comes to staying attached to the rack. (Like below, but mine have the Sunlite logo in the center.)

Does anybody have ideas about how to get this thing to hang on tighter, or recommendations for a similarly sized/featured pannier which a better rack-latching system? I'd like to maintain the ability to easily remove it, or I'd just ziptie the thing and call it done.

http://pictures.kyozou.com/pictures/_3/2781/2780000.jpg

The only thing I can think of would be to shorten the bungee somehow by putting a knot in it or something. Having had a set of cheapie Nashbar let go of my rear rack, get themselves locked in my rear wheel, and send me flying over the handlebars, I think it is well worth it to pay top dollar for a good set of panniers. Right now I use a set of Ortliebs. They are easy to add and remove, but once set on the rack, they won't go anywhere.

It can be quite a surprise when motorists start looking out for you.

I remember pulling up at a set of lights years ago. I needed to turn left, immediately go under a railway bridge then turn right. It was always a tricky manouvre. (Remebering that we drive on the left here in Australia.)

A couple of guys in a truck pulled up next to me. I heard one of them saying something. I figured that it would be the same old 'get off the road' kind of thing but I turned towards the truck to see what he wanted. He simply wanted to know if I was about to do the left turn, right turn thing. He wanted to know if he should hold back so that I could cross the lanes more easily when the lights went green. Nice.

I have this http://www.abikestore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=topeak-mtx-dxp&Category_Code=&Store_Code=pbs

with a Quick Trac system. It slides in and locks in about 2 sec. Never had a problem with it falling off.

The only thing I can think of would be to shorten the bungee somehow by putting a knot in it or something.
That's the key - you need the bungee to be tighter so they hold themselves down properly, which equates to making it shorter. Perhaps loop it around one of those d-rings a few times? A lot of panniers these days have systems that clamp to the rack rather than bungees, so are more secure, but that's no reason why yours should be falling off on every bump.

I've got two little tiny brass padlocks, and I lock the carry handle to the rack. This means that when I leave the empty pannier on the bike, I don't worry about it (sure, you could cut the handle, but then you'd have stolen a beat-up old pannier with the handle cut), but it also means if it falls off, it catches itself. Sweet.

This is why I ditched my sucky panniers and just use a backpack.

Check out the hook kit from arkel.
www.arkel-od.com

Not quite as inexpensive as some of the suggestions thus far but quite effective.

Other than popping off this time around, how happy are you with the panniers? I've got a sunlite toploader 3 bag and the sunlite bartender 4 bag. Very happy with both. I was looking at those traveler 2's, but wasn't sure how secure they were.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I ended up just tying a square knot near the top of the bungee and it seem to have helped a lot today. I'll probably keep my eye on it for a while just in case. Perhaps when these wear out I'll be able to upgrade to something with latches. (Of course, at any time before they are totally destroyed complete with multiple patch jobs, it will probably be very difficult to get signature approval from the finance department, so it'll be awhile. :P)

Other than popping off this time around, how happy are you with the panniers? I've got a sunlite toploader 3 bag and the sunlite bartender 4 bag. Very happy with both. I was looking at those traveler 2's, but wasn't sure how secure they were.

Very happy with the size, accessability, number and location of pockets. They're great general-use panniers for my purposes. Haven't yet had more than a couple occasions where I couldn't fit everything in a single bag.