Why Panniers? #cycletouring #cycletour #cyclingtours #cyclinglife #bikepacking #gravelbike #ebike

5MV-Pan – Why Panniers?
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https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fiveminutevelo
In this video I examine why I used traditional panniers during my recent tour of Spain and France instead of using a bike packing luggage setup.
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About the 5MV channel
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My name is Terry and I love cycling. I have named my channel “Five Minute Velo” (5MV). I have called it 5MV because the videos I upload will (mostly) last no longer than five minutes. Each video will cover just one subject that is described in the title. Although the channel is mainly about cycling on the road, I will also cover some light (gravel) off road riding, cycle touring and ebiking. No matter what, much of the advice will be pertinent to many branches of the sport/pastime.

I welcome constructive comments that will help me improve the videos that I produce and upload.

There may be some dry humour in some of the videos, so dry it may not always be obvious :-).

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My Strava profile can be found here:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7723982

Cambridge Cycling Club website:
http://www.cambridge-cycling-club.org.uk/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/fiveminutevelo/

Photos of 2019 Tour of low countries:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3ierczDfurM1gTGi7

Random cycling photos (will be updated from time to time):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VZBhCWcQZtynsJF1A

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Terry

In this video, I want to explore why I use the more traditional pania setup rather than the more modern bike packing approach to carrying luggage. This is the bike that I brought with me on my tour. It’s an ebike, a Specialized Turbo Vadu 4.0. As you can see, I have the more traditional paniers on the rear, a rack top bag, and on the front I have a handlebar bag. The bike came with a pretty good sturdy rack that the PAS and rack top bag fitted nicely to. I keep my tool kit here under the saddle. In the main triangle, I have a couple of water bottle holders with water bottles in. So the first reason I went with panias is I actually already had them so I didn’t have to buy any additional bags. I also had the handlebar bag which I find actually very convenient and often people will use this in a bike packing setup anyway. Although they often call them roll bags rather than handlebar bags. buying new bike packing type bags wouldn’t have been such an issue because the price of those are relatively low compared to the price of the tour that I’m going on. However, there are some issues about how those bags go onto the bike. Often the main bag will fit into the main triangle. Now, as you can see on this bike, it’s relatively small. Therefore, fitting something into that main triangle is a little bit more difficult. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, I have water bottles in there, and I wanted to retain those water bottles, and there are few other places to fit them. So, putting a bag in that main triangle really wasn’t an option for me. Now, I could have put a bag along the top tube here, and I could fit quite a large bag there. The only problem with that is that my knees wouldn’t clear the bag. They would keep bumping into it. So, I decided not to go for that option either. The third issue was the amount of stuff that I wanted to carry. As you can see, those panas are quite large. Um, that’s because I’ve got camping equipment in there, and fitting all of that equipment into a bike packing setup could have been quite difficult. Now, there are ways around that. In particular, you can get rack mounts to go on forks. The trouble with that is they suffer with some of the same downsides that at this traditional pan setup suffers with. They stick out into the wind and therefore they’re less aerodynamically efficient. They would also increase the unsprung weight which would make the suspension less effective. One of the big benefits of a bike packing setup as cycling about has demonstrated is it’s aerodynamically more efficient. As you can see here, the paners on this stick out a long way. They stick out into the wind and therefore they’re less aerodynamically efficient. As I wasn’t going to be riding particularly quickly, the aerodynamic disadvantage didn’t concern me too much. And that’s really where the ebike comes in because the ebike gives me a bit of extra motive force. Then it helps counteract that aerodynamic inefficiency. However, if I wanted to improve the aerodynamics, I could have put one of those long tail fin type seat packs on, but that would have raised the center of gravity of the bike, whereas these panas keep the center of gravity relatively low. Another potential advantage of the bike packing setup is that it distributes the weight across the bike much better and therefore the bike becomes less back heavy. However, as this is quite a heavy bike anyway, I didn’t think that that would really be a problem. And indeed, on this heavy bike, I didn’t have a problem with the weight being distributed towards the rear. Also, while riding the bike, the panas being low down meant a low center of gravity, and I didn’t really feel the weight of the panas while riding. It was only when I stopped that I really noticed the weight of the bike. Unless I could substantially reduce the weight of the bike and the luggage. Bike packing approach really wouldn’t help either. The ebike also helps to counteract the extra weight of the bike in stop start conditions such as in town and on the hills. This meant I didn’t have to concern myself so much with trying to lighten the bike or minimize the amount of luggage I carried. If I was forced to do that, perhaps the bike packing approach would have been more appropriate because the weight and volume of the stuff I would need to carry would be less. It’s now time for me to summarize why I use the traditional pure approach to carrying luggage. In the next section, I’ll talk in more generic terms and that may relate better to your needs. Firstly, I already had a full set of bags, including those paniers, and as I had used those previously, I knew I could fit everything I wanted into them. This meant I didn’t have to research, buy, and fit a set of bike packing bags that could hold everything that I wanted to take with me. Secondly, the ebike that I was going to be using wasn’t well suited to having bike packing bags fitted to the frame. In addition, it already had a good quality sturdy rack fitted to it, which would take those traditional panas and the rack top bag. This left the rear of the saddle free for me to put my tool kit under. I could also put my handlebar bag directly on the handlebars. In the first section, I referred to researching bike packing bags. Primarily, this relates to being able to carry everything that I want to and carry it conveniently on the bike. I quickly came to the conclusion I wouldn’t be able to carry everything that I wanted on that bike using a bike packing setup. I would have to make some compromises. Compromises I didn’t want to make. One of the compromises I didn’t need to make was around aerodynamics even though the PAS are large and stick out into the wind. That really didn’t matter to me as I wasn’t planning to go particularly fast. Anyway, I had the ebike which would help out. More important to me than the aerodynamics was the handling of the bike. I didn’t want to be fighting it as I rode down hills or in strong crosswinds. The panas being low gave the bike a low center of gravity and a low center of pressure which helped with both the descending and the crosswinds. Of course, the ebike being very heavy probably also contributed to the fact that I didn’t experience any handling issues. The size and the weight of the ebike and the fact that it gave assistance meant that I could carry more stuff. If I didn’t have the ebike, I may have been forced to travel lighter and therefore bike packing would have been more appropriate. As you may be able to deduce, because I’m riding on the left hand side of the road, I’m now back in the UK. And being back in the UK allows me to reflect on my tour through Spain and France, and particularly on how I carried my luggage. Earlier in this video, I explained why and how I chose the particular luggage carrying scenario that I did. I went for the more traditional pania setup. While I was in France, I thought I’ll do some sort of complicated analysis that would tell you and me what was the best carrying approach for a particular ride scenario. Now I’m back here in the UK and I’ve reflected a bit. I realize that’s total folly. I don’t think there are any rules that I could lay down that you couldn’t work out for yourself that would tell you what was the best luggage carrying approach for your particular needs. So I’m not going to even try. What I will do though is I’ll analyze my own luggage carrying through Spain and France. I’ll then let you decide the best luggage carrying approach for your needs. As for my own luggage setup, I chose the panas because I wanted to carry quite a large amount of stuff and I didn’t think that I could fit everything onto a bike packing setup. Also, some of the downsides of those paniers, in particular, the poor aerodynamics really wasn’t a problem for me as I wasn’t expecting to ride particularly fast anyway. Also, one of the more important aspects for me was that the weight on the bike didn’t upset the bike handling too much. And the panas being slung quite low tended not to have a big effect on the bike handling. Whereas, I suspect with a bike packing approach, everything would have been higher up and therefore the handling of the bike would have been impacted more. There again, if I had gone bike packing, I probably would have been carrying less stuff. So maybe at swings and roundabouts. Would I have liked my bike to be lighter? Well, I think lighter is always better. However, for my particular tour, I really didn’t notice the extra weight of the luggage on the bike. Probably partly because the bike was quite heavy itself and the weight was slung quite low. The only places where it may have helped was when I was trying to get my bike up and down stairs or in and out of lifts. So, non- riding situations. There’s a puncture in the making. [Music] Would I want the bike to be more aerodynamic? Well, of course I would. Do wants those great big panas sticking out into the airream. However, it would have meant that I had to make some compromises. and their compromises I didn’t particularly want to make and that would have related to the amount of stuff that I was carrying. So in the end I thought poorer aerodynamics are the lesser of the two evils. So I stuck with those great big sticky out panas. Having said that, I can certainly see that if I wanted to go on a faster, lighter weight tour, then big panas like that would not necessarily be very useful and using either smaller panas or a full bike packing approach would probably be preferable. But that wasn’t the ride that I did through Spain and France. So that’s for the future. So ultimately using the large non-erodynamic panas was a compromise that I made and overall I’m pretty happy with it. If I were to do that ride again, would I take those panas? I think the answer is yes. However, if I were to do a shorter and faster ride, I would probably want to lighten up and either use much smaller paniers or go to a full bike packing setup. Sorry, I can’t really tell you what’s the best setup for your own rides, but hopefully using this information I’ve given you, you can work that out for yourself. If you found this video useful, then please give it a thumbs up as that helps me and the channel out. Also, there are going to be more videos like this and some that are slightly different, too. So, if you don’t want to miss those, consider subscribing. So, from me until a future video, it’s goodbye.