My only bike is a Trek 2300 road-racing bike. I don't have any interest in taking up more space in my apartment with a dedicated commuter bike, and I'm a lot more agile and comfortable on the road bike anyway. I'm not even sure if it's capable of accepting a rank and panniers, but I wouldn't put them on such a bike even if it were capable. I would also not want the bother of having to remove and replace them all the time for different kinds of rides (pleasure rides, training rides, commute rides, group rides, and so on).

And, yes, I use my Chrome bag to carry my work stuff every day, whether I commute by car or by bike. (Currently, I'm commuting by bike two days a week).

Personally, I'd much rather focus on reducing the amount of crap I actually need to carry, instead of trying to increase the amount of crap I'm capable of carrying. (Some of the other commuters on the forum routinely carry around an astounding amount of what seems to me to be unnecessary crap.) Since I still commute by car, and will continue to do so ocassionally, I can always plan a little ahead and avoid having to carry much on the bike.

- Warren