Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
FYI
Several years ago Ortlieb added a restriction on their sellers to not ship retail sales to other countries, thus ifyou are in Canada (like the OP), you can't buy Ortliebs from Germany.
Other than that, I agree on European sellers having better deals. One of my Tubus racks and one of my Racktime racks came from Europe or the pre-Brexit UK. My Ortliebs came from the UK over a decade ago before Ortlieb added that restriction on their sellers.
More recently, Shimano also added that restriction, which is most unfortunate for many of us in USA.
Those are excellent photos of some good racks. Also, your point about having a wider platform on top versus low-rider bars for panniers is salient. For odd errands, the wide shelf on top is versatile, whereas the lower pannier mounts are best suited for that single purpose. Panniers have more utility than just touring, but if you want to haul something that doesn't fit in them, say a box from the store, then the narrow platform above the pannier mounts is less than ideal.
As for the sales restrictions, I found the website to show a warning for shipping Ortlieb to the US, though its not clear that it won't actually happen. However, there is no warning or any prohibition in effect for shipping Ortlieb from bike-components.de to Canada where Frenzen shows to be in Quebec.