Currently when I am biking to work, and not looking at 3 feet of the white stuff, I carry my laptop in a backpack with a change of cloths and lunch. This year I want to get a set of pannier bags to carry this and maybe more.

I wondering how many of you commute with your computers and what type of bags do you use? And if you do anything special for your laptop.

TKS

Sean

There's 23 threads in this forum with laptop in the subject line. That would be a good place to start.

Get a padded laptop cell to throw in your pannier if you want to haul it around in a pannier. That's what I do, and what quite a few others do.

Still more will tell you to keep it in your backpack because it's somehow safer in a crash that way. I'm still waiting for a scientific case study on that.

Others will flippantly tell you that you're ******** for carrying a laptop and that you should fit all of your stuff on a USB key, as if a USB key will provide you with all the functionality of a laptop. Through years of black-box testing, I've determined that for me, a USB key will sit on my desk silently and be a useless heap of plastic and silicon as my employer disallows all personal media from being attached to work owned computers and/or networks.

That's pretty much what your search results will drum up.
/thread.

I saw a phone company tech yesterday using an armored lap-top. Water-proof and able to survive a bike crash. If I had to carry a computer on my bike I'd want one of those.

I've carried a laptop just a few times.

I kept the laptop in its normal carrying case, and used multiple bungie cords to strap it down tightly on top of this trunk bag I use to hold my work clothes:

https://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...01005&sku=6804

I never felt I was risking damage to the laptop, although I would never try this in the rain.

The big problem for me was the added weight and bulk and the general hassle of having to carry it around. Since I have a desktop computer at work, I changed my work style so I didn't need to lug a laptop around, yet still be able to work effectively from home when I wanted to.

You might be able to pull the same thing off yourself if your laptop is not your only computer. Instead of strapping a laptop to my bike, I've got a flash memory "thumb drive" in my pocket. Switching to a completely web-based email system (gmail) allows me full access to my email from any computer on the Internet. And so on...

Now I commute with the laptop only on days when I know I'll actually need to use the laptop for say, a meeting, or similar purpose. Even then, I'll investigate getting a loaner first.

You can probably buy a state of the art, ounces small, high-capacity disk drive to carry your data around for the price of special computer bag for your bike.

Of course, none of this is going to work for you if your laptop is your only computer.

laptop goes in DHL or fedex provided free padded mailer. Mailer goes in pannier.

Most of the time, I VPN in with my macintosh from home. (Network Engineer)

Panasonic Toughbook. Enough said.

Would be a poetic addition to an old Panasonic Bike.