G'day

I am a bit of a fan of tie-down straps over bungee cords. You can see what I am referring to in this photo. I use one to stop the front pannier from bouncing around.



Regards
Andrew

Aushiker, who makes that little handlebar mirror?

I agree, very interesting.

That is a Zefal Spy Mirror.





Regards
Andrew

I use the front rollers and really like them. They are the best I've run across in 40 years of this.


Marc

I've never regretted buying my front and back rollers. Blue and black is not the best colour combo; but I do wear a Hi-Viz vest. I don't think I've ever met anybody who has regretted buying their Ortiebs.

My tent & fly go in the bag they were supplied with them and then I strap it across the top of my rear rack. My sleeping bag goes in its compression sack and then in my pannier. A sleeping bag needs to be dry that's why I put it in my 'waterproof' Ortlieb. My tent on the other hand will be wet after use so needs to be seperate. Once erected a tent will dry fairly quickly so in the morning I stuff it in its stuff sack as soon as it comes down.

I ran around with some tourists this past summer down in Arkansas and they sure loved their Ortliebs. I often stated that they should have been an advertisement for their product.

I am going to be in the small minority here but I own and have used a set of front and a set of rear rollers and I do not like them. Yes they are durable and they are certainly waterproof, I agree. But they are really expensive, are terribly inconvenient to pack and are very floppy especially on the front. I still have mine but do not use them any more. I made a set of hard shell panniers from kitty litter pails for less than five bucks a set. They are spacious, waterproof, easy to pack, cheap and with proper attachment have zero flop. They are great seats too when you stop to camp. They beat ortliebs hands down in every category based on my experience in using both (unlike so many posters that have strong opinions but no experience with what they have opinions against). The hinged lid pops open in half a second to get a snack or rain gear. Lots of info on the web too on ways to make them.

If you do use ortliebs at least put a tight nylon strap across the middle to hold them secure to the rack. Do not use a bungie because you are trying to get rid of elastic bounce.

As you can see I have a mixture, both types of bags, and three different colors :



I tent to use rope to tie the back bag on:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...gong%2B009.JPG

I tie a loop in the correct place on the rope, thread the end through the loop, and this allows me to cinch it tight before tying it off. It is sort of like a "truckers knot" but tied in there. If you tie the loop with figure 8 knot on a bight, it remains easy to undo, even after lots of pulling shocks.



z

They are cheap and work for you so great. The only thing I can't get is why you still have these 'expensive' Ortliebs if you're not using them. Why not sell them or give them away to someone who will?

I have the roller classics with the QL1 fixing system and find that when it's properly adjusted there isn't any problem. With the QL2 system there's more adjustment options and presumably these work well also.

Regarding model, I have the classic. I did not see the extra options with the other models as being worth the price.

From the side, yellow is quite visible but since you would likely get hit from the rear, the pannier color is less important because from the rear the panniers are black with reflective paint.

I bought one pair at Wiggle dot com and one pair from ProBikeKit dot com. Great prices, but shipping can be slower from europe.

Interesting what some people consider to be "really expensive." My first set of racks and panniers cost around $1,000 back in '99.

The problem I see with the QL2 is that the there is a relatively large gap between the inside surface of the lower mounting "arm" and the back surface of the pannier. At first found it difficult to get a tight connection. The result was that the bottom of the panniers would rattle on bumpy surfaces. This, combined with the flexibility of the arm, would cause the arm to become disengaged from the rack. With some work, I managed to find a good mounting position for the rears that eliminates the problem, but it still happens sometimes with the fronts. I think the ultimate soultion, as suggested by Wayne at TheTouringStore.com., is to wrap portion of the rack with something like the cloth tape used for tennis racket grips. Cork bar tape might also work well.

I'd call that expensive in 2011, not to mind 1999.

Were they Tubus racks? What were the panniers? Have you still got them?

Do you want to donate them to a financially challenged cyclist?

my first rear rack and rear panniers cost $32 in 1971. 40yrs later I can get something 10x better for about twice as much money. Amazing.

I can remember only three times in the last six years when I had a problem with Ortlieb attachment, and one of those was when my daughter was half asleep and ran into me! Do the people who have problems with attachment and general floppiness ride them off-road, perhaps?

Half agree with the point about the yellow being more visible from the side than the rear. Only half, because my 'packers have bright yellow dome-like lids that are quite visible from the rear. It's almost impossible to miss both the slow-vehicle-shaped reflective patch and the yellow tops.

I agree, my racks and bags in maybe 1990 cost probably $200 or so. Today there are great options out there.
That said, I still would buy Ortliebs again, in the long run are a good buy for what they do and how long they last.

I have had the lower arms disengage from the racks on bumpy, paved surfaces and on unpaved surfaces. I have never taken them on anything close to single track. Just unpaved roads that have been rocky and/or washboardy. Again, its pretty much limited to the front bags now, and I think I can remedy the problem.

Cusom stuff from Robert Beckman. See post #22 in this thread. The odd thing is that he shipped the stuff at the beginning of May but did not charge my card for the balance (I had put down a deposit) until September, after I had finished my trip.

my roller plus rears probably cost 175 or something in 93 maybe? Cant recall exactly, but other good quality bags were around the 100 mark. Here anyway, there were not other waterproof options at the time, so spending a bit more was not a big deal, plus as I said, they've been used pretty much regularly ever since, commuting mostly, but used all the time nonetheless and are in reasonable shape still.

My wife and I probably 7500 or more miles on our Ortliebs and have never had a issue with the attachment components or "floppiness". I think it is a matter of how well the panniers are adjusted to fit the rack. She has a set of the Packer Plus, but seldom uses the front ones on tours. The front panniers see more use commuting. In the picture below you can still see quite a bit of yellow from the rear. If she had a yellow rackpack, visibility would be better. Red does not show up very well, especially from a distance and in shadows. Also, the red codura material used in her Packer Plus front panniers really faded badly in 5 years of use.

A trip this summer included over 400 miles of unpaved roads and trails, and over 500 miles of cobble stone and paver block surfaced roads and trails. No major attachment issues. I did lose one of the rack spacer inserts on one of my Front Rollers which caused a little bit of a problem until I realized what happened. This was more my fault than a design issue.



Cobbles and paver blocks come in all grades of smoothness. However, none are really smooth.

I define expensive as 20x the cost of another solution. iE $6 x 20 = cost of ortliebs. I still have the ortliebs because like a lot of other stuff I bought but do not use any more and I am just too lazy to post on eBay.

I know ortlieb is a market leader with a lot of loyal followers (i used to be one) but I bet some of you would convert to hardshell home made panniers if you tried them. And if you are interested in potentially saving $100 before you make the investment!

I am still trying to rationalize why a yard of coated cloth and some plastic hooks costs $120. Must be the made in Germany part.

And some ortlieb fans will still have to admit that as good as they are for keeping things dry, they really suck in packability convenience. How many times have you spent more than five minutes on the side of the road trying to dig to the bottom of the bag to dig out whatever it is that you need.

Now if we all could just afford Robert Beckman bags!

why I would buy another pair-
-I actually find the fact that they can be folded down flat nearly (my plus ones anyway) handy sometimes, not essential though.
-Im used to backpacks and such, one space things, so this doesnt bother me, and I always put stuff in the bags the same way, according to need, so not a problem (part of that comes from using canoe packs etc growing up, plus my work has meant I always had to know wehre things were in case a doohicky was needed in a super hurry, so packability isnt an issue.
-I have had panniers where zippers have failed, so I like non zippered bags.
-as I said, for the life they have given me, not expensive in the least over time.
-really like the lock-on system on the rack upper bars, Ive had panniers pop off before with bumps, so this failsafe system is great and works flawlessy for me over all these years.

but really, they are just bags, go with what works for you.

I use a bit of PVC electrical tape on my rack where the pannier mounts to it, I use enough tape so that it is not loose and does not rattle. It also protects the paint on the rack.