My touring experience has been with rear panniers or front+rear combo when we travel with our kids.

This spring we (my wife and I) will probably be trying to ride with front panniers only. These would be Ortlieb classic/Tubus Tara, at 25L/pair (vs 40L for a pair of rear classic).

I think that we can manage on 50L between the both of us, for a self supported tour (i.e. camping+cooking) It'll simply be a matter of trying to fit everything in at home and adjusting our packing list until everything fits with room to spare.

This being said, two questions: 1. 25L per person is not much. Even backpacking we'd hike with 34L backpacks. Are there larger options available? 2. Anything else worth knowing beforehand?

Ortlieb now has a bigger capacity bag than the 40L pair they offered a few years ago

the bike packer can be overstuffed where the back roller , wont close.

I toured with 2 pair of panniers. , so I don't get the objection to it. good luck.

Unless you're using low-riders, you have the rack top, too, for some bulky things. And you can carry most of your water on the frame.

I came back to bike touring after a career in long distance hiking, and found I could easily tour with only two rear panniers and my sleeping pad on top of the rack. I didn't need a handlebar bag, either. It was nice not having the mass of the front packs and rack.

I did not need to carry as much food on the bike tours I went on, seldom more than two days worth.

One way I reduced my pack size, both hiking and biking, was going stoveless. I used to use an entire front pannier for kitchen stuff.

I also switched to a single-wall shelter. Bikepackers strap such a shelter to the bike frame or handlebars.

Most cyclists carry a lot of clothing. One method I learned is that you should be able to wear all your clothing at once, as part of a coordinated system.

Sorry no input for front-only, just ways to reduce volume.

I also find going stoveless eliminates a lot of stuff. Not just the stove but the fuel and the cookset too.

I agree about the clothing thing with the exception (perhaps) of taking a warm jacket like a thick fleece or mummy in case one becomes stationary in bad weather. It may be a geographic thing but I find I can stay warm enough when riding but can chill if stopped for a length of time, like a break down.

Warm clothing can take up room but doesn't really weight much so I don't fixate on volume only. I will forgo a lot of other unnecessary comfort items like stoves, extra shoes, street clothes etc... but not a set of weather gear that will handle the worst predicted conditions.

You can always carry a seat pack or a frame pack if you need more space, but you can also carry less if you are not travelling too far away from civilization.

Here's my ultralight-list where everything fits inside two Ortlieb front panniers (25L) except tentpoles, food (other than a couple of energy bars), and base clothing I wear. It does include 2-man tent, small cook-set, and warm clothes

Nice list, BA.

Options-

- Get a platform front rack with high and low mounting points. You could then just use the rear panniers up front and not fill them completely. Instead of the Tara, something like this- Extreme Front Rack

- Will you still have a rear rack? Get a compression dry bag and strap it to the top of the rear rack to handle any spillover gear since you only have 25L up front. Compression dry bags are great since they will bundle up small to whatever size is needed when filled and being waterproof whatever is in the bag is safe.

For those who have not seen them the Tara is a very strong rack . the hoop is a larger diameter

chromoly steel tubing bent to shape, than the 2 bars that the bag hooks ckip over..

+ remember their, accessory front kickstand, to keep the load from toppling the bike.





...

Thanks!

I have used this list and it's fine. But for me I've decided that its a little too tight packed for a long tour. I prefer the ability to pack several days of food and head out into the backcountry. Bigger kitchen, water filter, more tools, and more food require more pack space. Here's my slightly expanded form of that list. I used this list on my 2-week tour this past summer and you can see I expanded the volume beyond two panniers.

I won't look at your list...I don't look at anyone's packing list nor do I share my gear list (or even make one) as a matter of policy...but you do bring up something that people post over and over again that I just don't understand. Why do you put the soft parts of the tent in the panniers? I've never understood the logic.

Tents come with their own bag as a general rule and the tent poles probably don't fit in the panniers. This means that the tent poles ride outside of the bag...usually on a rack deck and usually on the back one...so why pack the soft part of the tent separately in the panniers? I can use the space for other things that don't have their own pack.

The other problem I see is that the vast majority of the time that I pitch a tent, the tent is damp or even wet in the morning. When packed in the tent bag, the whole tent eventually is wet and needs drying when I set it up at night. I could imagine putting the tent into a pannier and getting everything wet inside the panniers as well.

I'm not saying that you are doing it wrong but I just don't see the idea behind the practice.

I agree with your point on wet tents. And although I posted my list in which the tent is stored (in plastic) with other items, it's not my preference. You can see for my 2-weeks tour I moved it to the tail. But I actually like having my tent in a front with other wet items like water-filtering-stuff and rain gear. I prefer the quick & simple on-off-attachment of panniers especially in circumstances when doing a portage in the backcountry.

Here's my LHT running four panniers. Tent is in front pannier with the poles in a rear pannier. Nothing is lashed to the bike. The panniers have plenty of extra room so packing is quick & easy. I did ditch that handlebar bag mid-tour when I determined I could easily put my extra-iPhone-battery in the front pannier. The right front bag is my kitchen & food, its easy to pop off for picnic lunch or hang away from critters. There's always a lot of tradeoffs when packing but I really like the comfort of 4-bags with room to spare, when doing a months-long tour.

I don't know anyone else's logic, but for me personally, I'm looking at doing it because my tent's bag is very long and skinny, that I don't really want to strap across the bike. If it were like my second tent, which packs much shorter and thicker, there wouldn't be a second thought of just using the supplied bag.

I pack my small tent in a front pannier just because I have the spare room to do so. Everything else in that bag, rain and foul weather gear, is allowed to get wet. I don't use the tent's stuff sack because it's oblong shape would not effectively fill the shape of the pannier. Any dampness from the previous night will travel one day with no ill effects and will evaporate in one hour after being set up that afternoon. That leaves just the sleeping pad with tent poles wrapped inside on top of the rear rack. Also one less chore for the morning, trying to roll and fold the tent back into its factory stuff sack which is always one cubic inch too small! The pannier is just a quick stuff.

Like Big Aura I like keeping everything in 4 bags without HB bag. If I need additional pannier space there is always the option of putting the tent on the rack along with pad. Just my personal preference but I prefer the visuals of items packed low in bags in a tidy manner rather than tied on up high when possible.

edit: gauvins, not sure I could get by with everything up front on a long camping trip. I like having room to spare, not just enough.

The bags my tents came with are really long an cylindrical. I use compression sacks for them to reduce volume and a tent ball sitting atop the rack platform isnt then needed. I toss it in a plastic grocery bag and into a pannier. Nothing else gets wet and the rack platform is then available for other things.

Your comment about tent poles is interesting as I would need to keep them outside the bags regardless of where my tent is stored. So they are on the platform rack just like normal. I did lash them to the side of the top tube once, but didnt like the last minute style setup. Next shortie will involve me experimenting with how to better attach the poles to the top tube making them secure but also easy to detach. The poles I have for multiple tents are all too long to store in bags.

Wondering if you'll be fine with that ratio - you don't need to pack as much food/water processing while bike touring. I'm <25L fully loaded on the bike, and >35L backpacking. Just carry a 3oz Sea to Summit Ultra-Sil backpack for excess groceries or just-in-case.

I tour from a single quick-release 30L (not full) front pannier, tent and poles incl, on a folder. Around where I like to tour, I find ultra-compact/lightweight touring (nearly 2-item airline carry-on equiv) to be truly liberating for: multimodal transport, stealth-camping, and ultimate security (eg. wheel/carry my rig inside grocers/restaurants/museums/B&Bs - clicky).

My tent fly, and maybe tyvek footprint, are the only things that will get damp in the rain and they pack into the fly's waterproof pocket and so everything in my pannier stays dry. Dealing with a single, quick-release, back-packable pannier just makes life a little easier.

I used Backroller Classics on my front rack. My rack had higher mounting points, so maybe those won't work for you, but it worked great for me. With a touring bike and most of the rider weight on the rear, and most of the gear weight on the front, it felt fine, a very solid ride.

I will say, though, that I always had a rear rack, so even though the bulk of my gear was on the front, I could strap all manner of things to the rear rack if I needed them. But you also have the advantage of two people. I found that one pannier was completely devoted to sleeping: tent plus insulation. The other pannier had clothes, cooking gear, tools, etc. With two people and four panniers and an assumption that you'll only need one tent and one set of cooking supplies, you might have an easier time getting everything in. If not, there are options to carry a little more that don't involve a rear rack: Saddle bag, frame bag, top tube bag, handlebar bag. I use fork-mounted, Anything Cages, but I use those instead of a front rack now, not in addition to a front rack. But sometimes I mount one cage in my frame triangle when I'm not using a frame bag, which gives me another option on where to stash a few things. My nested cookset/stove fits nicely in an Anything Cage.

So I'd be inclined to set out your gear and see what you can do without, and what you can fit in. Maybe allocate two panniers for communal items like tents and cooking, and one pannier each for personal items. If that leaves you still hurting for space, there should be other ways to carry a little more without adding a rear rack and another set of panniers.

Great list.

In our case tent poles will not be a problem (carbon poles folding to 12"). We"ll see if the tent itself (1) does fit in front panniers (2) must be laced to the rear rack, or (3) will fit in the rear panniers if we are fed-up fighting for the last liters....

The answer depends in part on our ability to store our flightbags. If we carry them on top of our rear racks, everything will have to fit nicely inside a pair of panniers (preferably front, but we'll be pragmatic and may well end up riding with rear panniers.)

I'd suggest you leave the extra two pounds of rear rack on each bike for the first trip. Part of the way through, try moving those panniers to the rear. I've found loading front panniers really damps down front steering with "normal" bikes (not the low-trail variety that gets a lot of press from Heine et al). Try both and see how you like it.

+1 However, I do carry them on the rear rack, in a nice compressed package. The total weight with miscellaneous items and poles is less than 10 lbs.



Our 2-person tent and rainfly fit in the blue compression sack, which is not much larger than a loaf of bread. Sleeping bag goes in the "green" compression sack. Thermarest is in the orange bag.



I am not an advocate of front loading a bike. I prefer the weight to be more distributed between front and rear. I also do not stuff my panniers anywhere near full capacity. I have enough room to eliminate the rack pack, but this configuration works well for using trains and flying with the bikes. I also like a bar bag for camera and valuables (wallet, spare camera batteries, passport, etc.); it stays with me on or off the bike when traveling.

This is the setup I use most of the time; it was for a 3-month tour.


My wife rode across the U.S. using a pair of Ortlieb Front Packers and a rack bag. She has started using larger panniers since that venture

In our case, the main reason is that the top of the rear rack isn't available. This is where we carry our flight bags or food items.

1. for a relatively short open-jaw tour (i.e fly into city A and return from city B), we ride out/in the airport and use padded flight bags. We prefer padded flight bags over the thin plastic bag used by most airlines and would rather not spend a day hunting for a box at the nearest bike shop and deal with the logistics of finding ground transportation for two boxed bikes. (Bags are also mandatory on several trains).

2. we find it simpler to store the same stuff in panniers and to deal with transient goods (mostly food) with rack tops. Our routine was to use one (green) pannier to carry mats, sleeping bags, chairs and tent for two. It all fits well in a 20L roller.

This being said, as our next trip is a loop, we will consider the possibility of storing our flight bags near the airport. This would free the rear rack's top.

I usually strap my rain gear down on top of my front rollers so that it is in a handy spot that I can access quickly. Sometimes I have also strapped on a water bottle or two or some damp clothing that I did not want to pack inside the pannier. I think that is roughly 1 to 2 liters on top of each frontloader using that strap that goes over the top, that could give up up to about 4 more liters per bike. See attached photo to see how I strapped stuff on top. Sorry, I do not have a photo that only shows the front.

I have not used backrollers on front but I am aware that others have done this too. I was going to suggest this but you beat me to it.

That's how I've been rolling for years: 2 Ortlieb sport-packers onto a Tubus Tara in front.
I use a Carradice Nelson LF in the back for stuff I access often during the day (wind vest, sun sleeves, raingear, the food I'm buying before camp), it's rain-proof and expandable.
The rear rack also supports occasional firewood loads at the end of the day, or a filled up 4L Dromedary bag for my camp water in case of dry camps.

I also have the Ortlieb handlebar bag for the valuables, electronics being charged, and the snacks I'm munching on while riding.
The panniers don't get opened until I reach camp.

Do bikes typically handle better with front panniers vs rears?

Yes touring bikes typically handle better with a front load in that it stabilizes steering which means slower and steadier.
Compared to rear only which makes the bike rear heavy.