Originally Posted by
tjspiel
Until you want stop somewhere in between work and home. Now you're faced with leaving the laptop on the bike, taking it out of the pannier, or taking the pannier along with you. With a backpack or mess bag, the laptop comes with you by default.
For me a fairly lightweight laptop and a backpack designed for cycling has solved the problem.
For the last 12 months, I've commuted with my laptop in a cycling backpack. It's been fine, but I've finally made the move to panniers. Now, I put the backpack (complete with laptop etc) inside the pannier. This way, I can leave the pannier attached to the bike, then grab the backpack complete and go wherever I need to go. The advantage for me is that I don't need to transfer stuff out of my normal backpack into the pannier. On days that I don't ride to work, I know that everything is in my backpack and don't need to worry about having left something behind in the pannier. It's a solution that works well for me
Max