Originally Posted by
ak08820
I agree on the strap issue but I meant converting the backpack to pannier permanently, which means permanently remove the straps. (In my one time use of the backpack, I brought them to the front and secured the dangling ends by tying them together.) If I would keep the straps, I would make some arrangement to fasten them out of the way of the rear wheel.
Also, I would use 2 backpacks not one, or possible 4.
I did try the Nashbar pannier set, one of the largest ones, and returned them as the hardware was so flimsy.
Guess I'm not sure what objective you're trying to achieve. I can understand converting a backpack to a pannier so you can combine hiking and riding on a tour, but you seem to want to use them only as panniers rather than retaining the backpack function. But for equivalent quality, panniers are likely to be cheaper than backpacks since they don't need the nice padded straps, back ventilation, or other features that add cost and complexity to good quality backpacks.
I've been using a pair of the large Nashbar panniers for over 30 years (from when they were called Bike Warehouse) and, yes, the quality of materials left a bit to be desired and they are starting to fall apart. But they served me quite well on innumerable tours as well as grocery shopping runs during that time so I recently supplemented them with Nashbar's current 'Waterproof Rear Panniers' for $30 and I've now used those on a few tours down the Calif. coast and to Yosemite. I was a bit concerned about the security of the attachment hooks so I purchased a set of 4 Lone Peak hooks and added one to each of the Nashbar panniers for redundancy.
I attached the remaining two Lone Peak hooks to a backpack I already had to let it double as a pannier on combined bike/hike trips. It works fine in that role, but I don't plan to use it for regular bike tours - it's heavier than a pannier of similar capacity and less convenient to use when on the bike. So again, I don't see the point of turning backpacks into panniers if you don't need the dual function - there's a reason for the different designs and panniers do work better on bike racks while backpacks work better for hiking.