I did my second commute in to work this morning. I'm trying a commute without backpack today, and it's working well. I bought a couple of Detours Toto panniers over the weekend, and am trying them out today. One pannier gets my laptop and lunch. The other gets my clothes and miscellaneous stuff. The comfort level of this morning's trip was much better than last week's foray. It was such a relief to have that heavy backpack off of my back.

The Detour Panniers are pretty cool. They have an easy fold-over magnetic closure and shoulder straps. Bringing the panniers up to the office was as easy as opening the pannier, grabbing the shoulder strap, and letting the top fold back over. Then I just lifted up the panniers off of the rack. I did go the extra mile and try out the included rain covers today. It had rained for the last 3 days straight, and I thought there might be some road spray issues. My worries were unfounded though, as the covers were dry and clean when I arrived at work.

One more note on the Toto panniers. The rack clips have these cool little removable plastic inserts. You get a bag of inserts with each pannier, and choose the inserts that match the diameter of the rails on your rack. The panniers snap into my Topeak Explorer rack quite securely. There's nothing to secure the bottom of the pannier though. It wasn't an issue today, but I may rig up something in the future.

I'm a happy commuter today, and my back is much happier with the panniers.