I usually travel with a bag, and I found it annoying to be constantly cramming overfilled backpacks into traditional panniers.
About 1.5 years ago, I tried building a DIY rigid pannier / backpack rack out of aluminum angle and sheeting. Since then, I’ve built several more, iteratively improving the design each time.
So far, I’ve been very happy with how they’ve held up. They’re surprisingly durable, and will easily handle the weight of a loaded pelican case, or the odd low-speed impact with a bollard.
by bcl15005
5 Comments
These are cool and I don’t want to steal your glory but I love my Arkel Haul Its. Similar solution but they fold up flat when not in use.
https://arkel.ca/collections/bike-panniers/products/haul-it-versatile-pannier
Your use case seems to be a bit different as you carry more stuff, but I have always been looking for a solution to carry my daily backpack, that is not some transformer pannier bag backpack contraption, and easy to remove when not commuting.
A freaking basket is solution number one, but of course that doesn’t look sporty enough and is too permanent.
I found my peace with this piece of chinesium garbage, that somehow does the job perfectly
https://amzn.eu/d/iZJQ4nV
When carrying bacpack: fold wings up, backpack in between (bungee strap optional most of the times)
Carring pannier: fold wings down.
Carrying a bulky box: wings tothe side and bungee (haven’t tested yet)
When not needed: quick release, remove in 10 seconds (i didn’t bother to install the stay supports, which means it wont carry much weight, when it starts to buckle I’ll get another one)
Your solution of course seems more sturdy and can acheive a lot more, but for the purpose of carrying one backpack, (which is probably 90% of the time for 90% of the people interested in something like this) the winged rack works.
Good job though. Not my style but it sure looks sturdy and useful!
That is pretty freaking cool, well done! I have no such skills so I have a lot of admiration for folks who can take an idea and turn it into such a clean final product.
First – I love those, they look great, look like they function well, and you get to feel proud of them because you built them while riding around – and they look sturdy enough that you could pack a couple of toddler on there side ways! Way to go!
Second – for anyone without the skill to replciate/until this fine fella makes these available – When I was looking for a similar solution 10-15 years ago, tired of bungie strapping my laptop backpack with clothes to the top of my rack and hating fiddling with dirty and too small panniers with quick detachments, I finally got some of those grocery panniers (these specifically – [https://a.co/d/12OfFiI](https://a.co/d/12OfFiI) ). I toss my giant backpack/bags in, don’t strap it in and things just magically don’t fall out. They don’t look nearly as cool as yours but they fold out of the way and give a heavy load a bit of suspension due to the stretch in the nylon canvas material.
Seeing as that’s a ebike.
How much front end wiggle do you get?
I mounted 2 pelican (plastic) cases from harbor freight to mine and the wiggling was insanely difficult at low speeds. I didn’t even try to go faster.
Now I just use an oversized basket.