New product? You must not have been paying attention because these things have been around since at least the 1980s. The brand I use, BearVault, has been making canisters for over 20 years. Hanging food has been obsolete for many years and in fact is now illegal in many places in the US. The following parks require canisters as MANDATORY. Getting caught hanging food will get you a heavy fine and a prompt escort out of the park. You claim to be an outdoor person, but have you actually gone outdoors in the last 15 years? Or do you only ever engage in armchair typing? The world wonders.
From the
National Park Service website
Food Storage RequirementsDepending on which national park you decide to visit and
what types of bears are present there, regulations differ for how best to store your food. Some parks require food lockers or
bear-resistant food containers ("bear canisters"), while others allow visitors to hang food from a tree in a food bag.
Always check with the parks you plan to visit to learn their regulations. Not following those rules may result in fines, confiscation of food, towing of cars, or other penalties to protect visitors, property, and bears. Read below to learn some common food storage tips that can help you have a more enjoyable visit to your national park.
To pick on example,
this is what the Rocky Mountain Park has to say about bear canisters. As no one can travel backcountry on a bicycle in Rocky Mountain National Park, it’s not a regulation that applies to bicycle touring. For campgrounds where bicycles are allowed to travel, this is what Rocky Mountain says
Campgrounds: store all food items in food storage lockers; if full, store food items by one of the following methods:
- Inside vehicle trunks; be sure windows are closed and doors are locked.
- In vehicles without trunks, items should be placed as low in the vehicle passenger compartment as possible and covered from sight, with windows closed and doors locked. Visitors with soft-sided vehicles, vinyl or wood toppers, and convertibles are encouraged to use bear boxes.
- Visitors with convertibles or motorcycles are encouraged to use bear boxes. Bear boxes for food storage are available in all park campgrounds, and location symbols are on campground maps. Food storage lockers, which are approximately 3' x 4' x 3' are shared with other visitors and cannot be locked.
God damn you're ******** obnoxious. I'm the one who uses these things. You, by your own admission, have never handled one of them; yet for some reason you have enough ego to come around claiming what is possible or impossible, in "any front pannier you've ever come across". Here's a freaking picture of my canister in my Arkel front pannier. Gee, I wonder how I was able to tour all these years, and how I was able to create this magical picture, since Cyccommute has already decreed that it is impossible. Please sit down now and try to work on reducing the size of your head.
Okay, so you can get one in a pannier. I was wrong (not something you
ever say). Is that the 11 liter one you linked to or a smaller one? Either way, that would be impossible to carry with bikepacking gear. None of the bags available has anywhere near that kind of volume. As I do more backcountry riding with bikepacking gear, I go with what I can use which means either bear lockers if they are available or hanging if they aren’t. Above timberline, I store my food away from the campsite.