Well, to be fair, I could use panniers if my bike weren't a racing geometry road bike. The short wheelbase just puts the panniers straight into my spin zone.

But honestly, I'm just surprised that there isn't more emphasis on lightweight when it comes to things like commuter and touring panniers. It's obvious that you can't make everything from super thin sil-nylon or anything crazy like that because they have to put up with some abuse. But I bet if a company actually put some real effort into it, they could at least reduce the weight of their bags by maybe as much as 25%.

One idea that immediately comes to mind is an internal aluminum frame like you see in the backpacking world rather than one huge plastic stiffener. You might not think the plastic weighs that much, but I took a plastic insert out of a handlebar bag and it nearly weighed as much as the bag itself! It went from being about half a pound to a quarter of a pound.


And enigma, I plan on just using two bungee cords and strapping the bag down with an X pattern. I did this all the time on the backseat of my motorcycle and it's served me well up to, well, highly illegal speeds on some motorcycle tours.