Tourist in MSN

Yup. We did a five day loop out of Madison, he was testing his bike and gear to get ready for his third cross country (Oregon to Maine) tour, he always takes a lot of photos of his trips, thus the bike in front of park signs.



He had a new front wheel with dynohub and new Luxos U to check out, plus I think he had a brand new tent to test too.

I went along to test my new Lynskey that I had built up a month or two before that.

Doug64

My wife and I switched to Ortlieb panniers 11 years ago. The only problem we've had with them in over 20,000 mile of touring is the loss of one spacer clip. Our two daughters have toured with us for approximately 3500 miles of that total. They also use Ortlieb panniers without any problems. The loss of one spacer clip is pretty insignificant for 5 pairs of panniers.

This is my right front pannier which had a high speed encounter with a tall curb. The damage is cosmetic; it is still waterproof.


We were washing the mud off our gear after riding through an area recently flooded near Calgary, Alberta a few years ago. Try this with water resistant panniers. I believe that is the same pannier in the picture above.

Chris!

I decided to go with the ortliebs. It's hard to beat some of the deals that can be had. I went online to SJS cycles out of Britain. The FYI is that because it was an overseas sight it triggered my cards fraud protection and was denied before I recieved a call from the bank. Just thought I'd share in case others try and have issues.

pdlamb

I've ordered some things from Europe before. The orders from Britain (back when it was still in Europe?) went through without any problems. The order from France was, well, interesting. I tried to order twice (press the order button, reject, call the credit card company, order again, nastiness from the web site and credit card company). The third order was approved while I was still on the phone with the fraud division of the credit card. That was almost worth the value of the goods just for the entertainment: "I'm ordering 125 euros' of stuff from xxcycle.com." "There's an order coming through on your card from xxcycle.com" "Yep, that's the one I just told you about." "It's for about 125 euros." "Yep." "You want to approve this charge??" Duh.

indyfabz

Too bad you missed Wayne. He's still got some inventory left, but the most popular items are sold out as he winds down his business:

https://thetouringstore.com/thetouringstore/ortlieb/

winston63 

Thanks for the head's up. I do understand why the banks are vigilant about this sort of thing (after having my CC compromised in the past).

You'll get years of use out your Ortliebs, enjoy!

Chris!

Anyone ever order from SJS, how long for delivery to the US? I've been mulling over what to get for months and now I cant wait to oogle my new panniers till its warm.

Tourist in MSN

I do not recall how long my orders from SJS took, but it was quick enough that it did not bother me. I was surprised that the bike frame and fork I ordered in 2013 got here as soon as it did. I am guessing in between a week and two weeks. My last SJS order was spring 2017, that order was a bunch of small parts, probably smaller box than a set of panniers.

When I ordered my Rohloff hub from Germany in 2013, triggered credit card fraud alert, twice. Finally I had a person in the fraud dept manually overriding the account while I was placing the order on line to make sure that it went though.

Some credit cards have no currency transaction fees, some have 1 percent fee, but 3 percent is also common. I screwed up when I ordered my Rohloff, I had to pay 3 percent which was roughly $30 since the charge was in Euros, should have used a different card.

seeker333

Several years ago I purchased some Ortliebs from FW Evans, also in UK. Watching my package via online tracking, I was first surprised to see it speedily depart UK, then disappointed to see it arrive in Venezuela 8 hrs later (I am USA resident). It took a couple emails and a phone call to clarify, but I eventually received the (second) package in about 8 or 9 days. I guess some lucky person in Venezuela got a couple pairs of Back Rollers for free.

I've ordered from Wiggle (UK) several times and had packages delivered in under 72 hrs. Wiggle used to have the best deal on Ortliebs back ~7 years ago, with lowest price and free shipping to USA, at the time about half the USA MSRP. Ortlieb (and many USA bike shops) soon noticed Wiggle's low price and a policy was instituted wherein UK shops were not permitted to sell to USA, as this undercut the MSRP/sales for USA Ortlieb sellers. This policy appears to still be in force, as the few UK shops I just checked will not ship Ortlieb to USA. I'm surprised SJS sold to you in NY, and checking I see they'd sell to me as well. Front and rear pairs of Ortlieb City Rollers are $182 total shipped to USA from SJS (including $42 S/H) - so that is 4 City bags for the price of 2 Back Roller Classic bags from a USA QBP-affiliated seller.

After posting links (#11) to Ortlieb City bags at bike-components.de, I see they no longer ship Ortlieb to USA destinations, which was not the case for years up until at least a year or two ago. Fortunately bike-components.de still appears to ship Rohloff to USA destinations.