otacon451

I'm looking at turning a pair of 41L and 32L messenger bags that I'm confident I could convert into a pair of panniers for the front or rear wheel, by using the designs of previous folks. Practically, however I'm curious how that kind of load distribution would affect how the it rode and handles, as on the rear theyd be completely above the rear seat stay and extending a bit behind the wheel, and on the front theyd cover the wheel pretty extensively. Conversely, the largest panniers I've seen via searches so far are around half of the capacity of this pair of bags, and are generally much longer vertically, whereas a messenger bag is horizontally much longer.

To summarize, will messenger bags (70L total) work well as panniers if they
(1) are twice as big as a normal pannier set (40L max by my est) and
(2) much longer than they are tall?

Dostoy

I imagine "longer than they are tall" will cause problems with heel and toe strike.
Panniers are tall and skinny for a reason, and that's to keep them out of the rotation of your feet.

positron

my panniers are 80L total (front and rear)

if you are talking about one pair of 70L panniers, its a bit excessive I think. At that point you should look into something like an xtracycle...

carradice super c- 52L rear, 28L front.

otacon451

yea im sure id have to angle them backwards and overall position much farther backward or higher on the bicycle than normal. and im really curious how a load like that would handle. i assume not well.

just realized the thread title will be read by most as a 'greater than' symbol rather than a 'convert into' type of meaning...

juggleaddict

hmm, i think it depends on what you want to use them for, for touring, i would feel more comfortable with panniers that are made for the job. that being said, i do think it could work if you rigged it up right, i would try to mount them a little farther back than normal panniers and hang a bit off the back side of the rack more to account for the extra length

you don't want too much weight too high either, so if you could mount them on the front wheel (to keep them lower and more accurate to what real panniers would feel like) i would

blindman10

My first question would be to ask why you would possibly need a capacity that great?! If I read correctly, you are planning to affix a pair of 41L AND 32L bags to your bike, meaning 41+41+32+32?!?!
I hope I am mistaken in that assumption because that is a lot of storage! 146 LITERS! My Ortliebs come in at about half that and I sometimes cannot manage to fill them without adding unnecessary items.

I cannot see why you would need that much room and cannot imagine any safe way to mount them without severely hurting your handling and/or causing foot strike issues.

If I am mistaken and one pair is 41L and the other is 32L, then those aren't that large and are comparative to the size of my Ortliebs....but the fact that you say yours are twice the size of normal panniers leads me right back to my first point...

otacon451

oh sorry, the two bags together come in at about 70L, I've only got two, and I'd ideally put them on the front. I'm just trying to re-use the bags I already have, and not buy more stuff as I'm a fairly broke college student about to graduate and the outlook on jobs is grim to say the least.

otacon451

I guess I also have no experience with what sort of weight a high quality rack would hold, ill utfse but opinions are welcome there too... thanks!

blindman10

Ah i see. One bag in each size. That isn't nearly as extreme as I thought above! Sorry for freaking out.

Would you be able to post a pic of these bags? If they are so large that they are nearly the size of a wheel, mounting could still be troublesome.

Camel

Before you damage your messenger bags, have you thought about selling (or donating) them?

If you are near a city with a descent Craigslist user population, then you mmight have luck selling your bags then buying panniers.

..I can carry a 3" adjustable spanner which weighs 7lbs as my bike tool. I can also carry the proper tools for the job, weighing about a pound.