No its not. Depending on whether I have summer or winter clothes, zero or three meals, my lock, work papers, I bet my pannier weight fluctuates by 15lbs and I never notice it.
Also, nothing wrong with a backpack . . . until summer. Then its sweaty and gross.
Ad hominem attacks, you assert? All I said was that some of you lacked in reading comprehension skills. In fact, you, in particular, failed to comprehend some of the previous posts I made, as is evidenced by the above, quoted post. You took a line out of context from my original post. Specifically: "5 pounds? That's a huge difference." You then insisted it was not a big deal for you when riding, which I do believe. What you failed to comprehend was that I said 5 pounds was a huge difference in regards to carrying a bicycle up and down half a fight of stairs twice a day. I was not referring to the ride quality, although I did specify that in my case with a seatpost mounted rack, this was an issue with as little as 5 pounds.
And then you jump to saying that backpacks are fine, until the summer when they get sweaty and gross. You managed to gloss over, what I feel, had to be more than one reference to the fact that I did not plan to carry a backpack on my back. Therefore, you failed reading comprehension 101 not once, but twice. This is a pet peeve of mine.
Results may vary, as do opinions. But just not listening (or in this case, reading) and then offering an unsolicited opinion entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand? That's just silly.
Don't think I'm out to get you, I see this like a rash all over every message board I've ever frequented. I hope in the future we can both pass on a little knowledge to each other. I was trying not to call anybody out, but I don't appreciate being accused of something so petty as "ad hominem attacks" especially when I fail to see what is so ad hominem about pointing out basic flaws in reading comprehension.
As to everyone else: I've done this setup for three days now (school just started Tuesday) and it's worked great. Today I had to do some wet weather riding and was able to toss my bag into a 35L waterproof stuffsack I bought for some "lightweight" touring.
The bungee setup has been great and the bag is working out very well. It's a wonderful feeling to stop at the bottom of the steps, pull off the backpack and carry a reasonably light bicycle upstairs. Not only did my bike weigh an extra 5 pounds with the panniers and seatpost mounted rack, but because it was a fuss to empty both panniers before walking up the stairs (which also meant carrying two bags plus a bicycle at once), it meant I was usually lugging something closer to 40-45 pounds up those stairs. Now with the rack+lights+tools, the bike only weighs around 26 or so pounds. I weighed my pack the other day and it came in at 16 or so pounds with notebooks+laptop and school clothes.