Bicycle Commuters: What Do You Carry in Your Panniers?
I am designing a pannier bag that can double (or maybe even triple) as a backpack and/or shoulder bag once detached from the bicycle rack as part of my Product Design class. I need an idea of what items commuters carry when going to school/work/wherever it is you go on your bicycle. Also, is there anything else the bag needs to be able to do?
It’s a good plan but the idea has been commercialized before. I had a set of 4 (two small rear panniers and two small front ones, all in bright red waterprrof heavyweight nylon) … made by Kanuk, I believe … in the late 80’s. The two large panniers converted into a full sized backpacker’s pack (complete with padded lap belt and shoulder harness) and the tops from the panniers (which unzipped) converted to a small second bag. They were easy to mount on the bike, yet made a very handy large pack off the bike … ideal for a tour I did in Australia and New Zealand which combined loaded bike touring and a couple of weeks of hiking/off-bike touring. I even used the backpack setup as my luggage of choice on a couple of non-bike vacations because it was unique looking (find easy at the luggage carousel at the airport, softsided, multiple zipper access points, etc). The small paniers could also be used either at the front on low riders, or on a rear rack (I used then for years as commuter panniers because, for my purposes the big panniers were too large for day to day needs).
The types of commuter gear I carried included:
- Tools (spare tube, pump, patch kit, multitool)
- books, files, etc to/from the office
- rain gear (breathable jacket/pants)
- plastic bags (for over the seat or to cover feet in case of rain),
- spare shirt (in case I got wet riding to work),
- bungie cord (to fix extra stuff to rear carrier).
What I never carried, but no doubt would today, is a laptop … and any good panniers should plan on a padded pocket for one these days.
The only issue with panniers is they are usually one big compartment. I’d suggest zippable/removable dividers (2 vertical .. one front to back, one side to side to form any combination of 4 compartments open from the top) … keeping in mind the need to balance the load and yet retain “waterproofness”. An outer zippered pocket would be very useful.
Good luck with the project.
Tikit Showercap – Instruction Video
