Pannier for commuting with very large laptop?
 

I am building up an old carbon fiber frame to be a commuter.

Obstacle one is that there are no eyelets / mounting bosses for a rack. I have found various rack options to perhaps get around that.

The big obstacle is that I must commute close to 20 miles each way with a much bigger than normal laptop. My work involves a lot of graphics work, so I need a very powerful machine - and the company went with a gaming computer in order to save money.

It measures 16" x 12" x 2" and weighs probably in excess of 10 pounds.

I'll need a pannier that can fit it, and have room in there to rig up some kind of padding to protect it. The roads I'll travel are in very good shape, but still, you never know what might happen.

I know precious little about this subject. I've looked at some of the Ortlieb stuff and I *think* some of their systems might fit the bill, but it's hard to be sure. I've also tried to contact Wayne at Thetouringstore.com several times, but so far - no reply.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

I don't know what bag to recommend, but I will recommend that you replace the hard drive with a SSD so that the shocks of riding don't crash your hard drive.

Do you *need* to carry that beast? Leave it in office, and use software that allows you to make a safe connection to that laptop from home (vpn + windows remote desktop should suffice on windows, or vpn + vnc/nomachine for linux). If you don't have a home computer, buy that instead of panniers :)

Leaving it at the office is not an option. Wherever I am, it must be with me.

I would find any way possible to avoid carrying that laptop back and forth. If the company expects you to do heavy graphics they should provide a computer that's up to the task, or suffer the consequences of your lower productivity.

I use two computers and use a USB drive to ferry data and keep them sync'd. I also have a larger portable disc drive which used to get more use, but USB drives got big enough that it's now mainly a back up device.

I'm considering buying a tablet as my travel computer since it has few, if any, moving parts to get damaged by road shock. Plus it's much lighter than my laptop, so it's easier to fly with, or carry on the bike on longer trips or tours.

If you do decide to commute carrying the computer, discuss with your employer issues like who'll take responsibility for a damaged disc drive, or any other work related loss.

I'd think that the regular rear Ortliebs would hold even a 17" laptop. Weight would no issue for those bags. You could buy an "sleeve" (a padded envelope bag) and use that inside the pannier. You could probably even fit a regular laptop bag for large laptops inside the regular rear Ortlieb pannier.

Mechanical hard drives park their heads when shut down, so it's not really a big deal to have them in a bag unless you're planning some radical riding. However I'd highly recommend the SSD just for the performance advantages---they're a huge improvement.

If you've tried contacting Wayne recently, you may want to listen to his answering machine or read the header on his website- says he's busy for a few days.

I strongly suspect I can fit my 17" macbook pro in my back roller with its sleeve, but I have not tried nor can I attempt it now.

Aren't dimensions available for you to check?

EDIT: Yes that information is readily available.

This option might wear on your back after a while, but if you have a strong back just carry it in a backpack , your body will absorb most of the road shock and it wont get damaged . after 20 miles tho it may be a strain . +1 for the SSD . prices have gone down tremendously

carradice saddle bag might be the ticket.

Carradice Camper longflap saddlebag

Yes, I've seen that but it may or may not tell the full story. The largest dimensions I saw there was 16.5" x 12.6" Those are both within half an inch of the laptop. So then the question is, is that just the internal measurement with no wiggle room? Something that close to what I need to carry, I could see it possibly being not quite enough. Thus why I asked and gave the specific dimensions of the laptop.

Not an option. Too heavy, too sweaty and fatiguing.

Thanks for not making me explain that about how hard drives work.

Also, this computer is not just for graphics work. That's part of it, but not everything. Having the company buy another one, or me remoting into it from home, etc etc are not options.

Either I will commute with it in a pannier or I will not commute at all. If I can set something up with an acceptable level of risk against damage, short of a high speed wreck, then that should work.

I don't think I'm the first person to ever bike commute with a laptop.

Thanks all.

Ok so I don't have my laptop here but i do have a tape measure. The width isn't uniform, the bottom looks to be about the 9.1 they say as the lower limit in that chart and it takes a good while to widen up. Might not work out for your mammoth machine, unless you're willing to leave it unrolled.

http://i.imgur.com/dPKsi7o.jpg

Have you considered using a front porteur rack with the laptop strapped down inside a standard padded laptop bag?

Wald Multi-Fit Bicycle Rack: Gloss Black

Or a rear porteur rack like this? https://www.benscycle.com/p-2120-gam...FRJqfgoduHgAIQ

I have to commute with a heavy laptop as well (it's part of my company's disaster recovery plan---people can work from home if the office is inaccessible).

I've been carrying it on my back in a padded Targus laptop backpack (but my commute's only ~4 miles).

My plan is to get a rear rack and to bungee the same bag to the rack.

You're not the first person to ever commute with a laptop but most laptops weigh considerably less and are smaller to boot. ;)

I also carry a laptop on my commutes and the right case/bag has made that easier. The one I have isn't that much more than a sleeve with a few pockets, a set of handles, and a shoulder strap. It adds about and inch to each dimension, so basically 1/4 - 1/2" of padding all the way around. There's enough room for the power supply, a few odds and ends, some paper documents, the laptop and that's about it.

Normally I use a backpack on my commutes but did use the same bag in a pannier for a few months awhile back. I've been commuting with a laptop for 7 or 8 years, all year round and I've never had an issue.

A problem you may run into is not having enough heel clearance on your bike to even use a larger pannier. That may be the case if this is a road bike. I would make sure that whatever you get you can return.

You should come into the 21st century and use dropbox or google drive or some equivalent service. Life is so much better.

A remote connection is an OK solution for some work but not others, - probably not graphic intensive work which is what the OP is doing. I carry a laptop as well and while I wouldn't want to haul something like the OP's system around, I much prefer working locally on most of the stuff I do.

I'm thankful for the ability to access systems remotely, it has saved me a trip into the office on several occasions but even with modern broadband it is not quite the same a being there. To me it doesn't make much sense to pay for the performance of a high end system only to have it hobbled by running the interface through broadband.

It depends on your work and how often you work from home. I carry my laptop to and from office, but I could switch to leaving it in office - most of my development work is on remote virtual machines running in a data center somewhere, and my laptop only does email, browsing, chat and powerpoint presentations. If the OP doesn't work from home too often, it is definitely doable.

Without getting into the "bring it / leave it at work" debate, for more than a year I've been commuting with my laptop. It measures15 x 10 x 1.5, and I carry it in a neoprene sleeve, within an Ortlieb Back-roller Classic, with an additional storage bag that contains all my laptop accessories. I've replaced the neoprene sleeve once, due to the wear and tear it takes inside the pannier, rubbing against mounting hardware. Other than that, it has worked really well. Prior to that, I was using a messenger bag or backpack, but opted for panniers again due to the "pain it the back" and the heat.

OP, I think you need to list the rack options that will work for you. You need to make sure that the rack can take the load you have in mind .. e.g., seat post racks won't carry as much weight as a regular rack. The weight itself is something you can cycle with easily (or get used to soon) .. if you can find a suitable rack.

Not a practical answer if you are accessing large files or if there are security considerations such that your employer doesn't want his data on a public server.

Remote Desktop is a thing of beauty. You retain the performance of your machine as all the processing occurs there and the network connection has little to do with it. All that happens over the network is sending commands and receiving screen updates. You're just seeing a picture of what's happening on your office machine and if you have a fast connection it's virtually indistinguishable from a local session. I agree that high end graphics and video might suffer from compressed graphic rendering but performance is all there.

Generally speaking (unless you have some truly super-sensitive data), you don't even need a vpn as no data files are going across the network. Instead of VPN, you just need a firewall rule set at your office to direct RD connections from your home machine's public IP to your desktop/laptop computer at work. If security is an issue, encrypt your laptop using Bitlocker so, if it's lost, the only concern is replacing the hardware.

Anyhow, if the OP's employer requires him to carry the laptop I guess he has to carry the laptop and I don't suppose they'd be down with replacing the HD. It's not really necessary if the machine is shut down (as it should be) before packing it up. If it was me I'd get a large waterproof pannier, throw in some padding and use that bag only for the laptop. Most damage is to the screen comes from having it squished by hard, small objects. Pencil sharpeners between books and laptops are screen crackers.