I had used panniers and a small saddlebag exclusively on my Sam, and recently thought of switching to "bikepacking-style" bags on my Jones Plus. I thought I could be a stealth ninja with all-black Revelate/Porcelain Rocket bags for my bikepacking rig, but they just seem too confining and hard to organize. I'm planning to do many S24O's and some 3-5 day trips this summer and I plan to use my Swift Roll Top panniers (≈ 60L), a small Swift Zeitgeist saddle bag and a Revelate Sweetroll handlebar bag as my primary bags. I really like the easy on/off feature others have mentioned (esp. for quickly going from bikepacking bike to everyday bike to mountain bike and back) and also the better organization panniers and traditional saddle bags provide. Swift bags are just awesome, by the way. Combine with some Sea-to-Summit sil-dry bags and you've got a reliable waterproof system.
I had ordered a frame pack for my bike and I was not impressed with the weight-of-bag:capacity ratio, in addition to the issue of inevitable velcro breakdown. I also have a Porcelain Rocket saddlebag on order but am considering backing out thinking it's not compatible with a rear rack. Panniers may be less high-performance than a dedicated bikepacking rig, but there's something to be said for tried-and-true simplicity and capaciousness. Especially when you err on the pack rat part of the spectrum. Here's the bike at the Deschutes River Trail this past weekend! http://imgur.com/gXKSxFY -- 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.
