There are roll-top pannier people, and there are flappy-top pannier people. The only way to find out which one you *really* are is to buy the other kind of panniers, ride around with them for a while, and realize how much you hate them.
I used to ride around town with a full set of purple OverLand flap+pocket panniers that I got in a bike swap trade. I used them for groceries and general errands. After a few months, I realized that I hated the design. I am not an organized person, and having lots of little pockets does not help me keep things in their proper locations; it gives me more places to lose things and get frustrated when they don't come immediately to hand. And the flap-top design is a huge failure for me - the waterproofing method is a dry-sack with a drawstring. When I was buying groceries, and coming out of a brightly lit grocery store into a dark parking lot, I'd flip up the top flap and start shoving groceries into the dark space, which would accept some stuff...only to pour out the groceries onto my shoes, as the shallow bowl created by the top of the dry-sack collapsed under the weight. That sent me into a furious public rage more times than I care to remember. For me, the real appeal of the roll-top design was that it's one great big pouch, with one great big hole on the top. The only way to get anything in is to open up the great big hole. Then you stuff in as much as you can, and roll the top down over the results. For me, it's a much more manageable system. But I would never have known that for sure if I hadn't used a different infuriating system for a few years beforehand. I replaced the flappybags with a set of miscellaneous Ortlieb rolltops - all rears, mounted on Bruce Gordon racks (you can run Ortlieb Backrollers on lowrider front racks, as long as you stay on paved roads and don't make super-sharp turns). I have three Classics (the heavier PVC bags) and one Plus (the lighter rubberized Cordura). I strongly recommend the Ortlieb Plus over the Ortlieb Classic, if you can afford them: they're much lighter, and you can roll the tops down tighter, which makes a better water seal. I think the flap+pocket panniers might work well for an organized person - someone who's good at keeping things in particular places, and remembering where they keep things. I am not that kind of person. As for Ortlieb over other brands, Anne's point is spot-on: The mounting system works. You can feel it securely SNAPping into place. Peter Adler no actual touring experience, but with years of day-to-day hands-on pannier use in Berkeley, CA/USA What makes the roll-top design better? Is it because it is more > weatherproof? more accessible? allows more overstuffing? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
