While browsing some of my photos of trips in Alaska and the Yukon I was reminded of an annoying issue with soft luggage. Travel on wet dirt and gravel roads tends to produce a fine spray of dirty water which can end up partially covering the bags. This state of affairs is worsened if road maintenance has involved the use of calcium chloride to keep the dust down in dry conditions. The silty calcium chloride content in the spray tends to dry to a very hard and crusty film.


So not only did my bags repeatedly get covered by this stuff, the buckles and knots used to secure the bags to the bike tended to end up semi frozen by the dried grit. The stuff even managed to work its way into zippers despite flaps of material covering them. All very annoying at the end of a long day. Also a disincentive to bringing the bags into a tent or motel roomy. At the ends of the trips clean up of the bags was a major project as the silt tends to work its way into the weave of the material and stinks up the joint.


Waterproof covers, with elasticized rims, are available for some soft bags and I did try a set. They were less than satisfactory however. To get into the bags you need to remove the muddy covers. In addition the covers did not shield the back of the bags which is where the attachment points were. The covers were also one more thing to lose and to carry crap into your shelter.


All hardly an earth shaking problem but an aggravation worth noting if you're planning to travel in those sorts of conditions. I now use hard luggage which I don't remove during a trip. A nice, clean, dry inner bag comes out and with me at night. No sweat.

Excellent point, it's somthing I've thought about recently. I saw Lyndon Poskitts' review of the Magadan bags the other day from ADV-SPEC. They have an inner dry bag, which although covered in a fine dust, the contents of the inner dry bay looked clean as a whistle. I've always used hard luggage but I have bought some soft Wolfman Tetons to try out. So this is a good point to consider that I hadn't done previously. Thanks.

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www.AdventureVagabond.com Mongolia & Siberia 2012: Adventure Moto Madness

I use inner bags with soft luggage just as I did with hard ones. The hassle of getting a pannier off a bike and clean enough to bring indoors is pretty much the same in my experience unless we are talking GIVI style plastic suitcase type things which have more serious problems to lay against this advantage.


Rucksack type snap buckles on the outer "holding" bag make life easier than zips and roll down stuff sacks inside stay dry enough and clean enough. The snap buckles are far easier to fix on the roadside than zips too.


Andy

It's true, soft bags get pretty grungy. Just did 4000 miles in Mexico ... LOTS of road construction and LOTS of water trucks. All my off road riding was dry, so just a bit of dust. But on the highway ... massive construction projects, some going for 60 miles.

You might consider using inner bags inside your soft bags. My soft panniers stay ON THE BIKE, never come off. I simply unzip pannier, lift out my inner bag and I'm away. No dirty panniers in room or tent. Loading in just as easy/quick.

I did spray off my bags one time on my trip. Used a hose in a Pemex station. Took all of about 3 minutes, got about 80% of the mud grunge off the bags and bike. Easy.

That Calcium Cloride is a BITCH ... it can also damage fabric and Aluminum.
I try to wash it off daily if possible.

One other thing ... dirt and mud affected the Zippers on my panniers. But washing them off helped. I used silicone spray polish once back home to get them zipping good as new.

Once home, I made a warm solution of Tide and soaked the bags a while, then did a quick scrub. Rinse it all off really well. Clean as new.

A crayon or wax lubes zippers nicely.

Right, but first you've got to get the sand and grit out. Adding wax or lube to a dirty, gritty zipper just makes if worse. Don't ask me how I know this!

Usually a rinse with high pressure water does it, maybe a bit a scrubbing with a bristle brush. Dry, then wax it up. Silicone polish works OK too.

I am thinking to use Ortlieb Dry Bag Liner PS10 the "short version", with my soft panniers is 42 ltr (2563 in³)....

I use them in my hard panniers and work fine!

So if my soft bags get dirty i can wash them in a gas station with the dry bags inside.

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3mountainsadventure

I've been using a Giant Loop on a XR250 here in South America, my thoughts;

Obviously great for small bikes, lightweight no frame needed.

Protects the bike when you drop it or come off. Sowing is easier than welding too!

Squishes whatever is inside if you do fall off, forget putting your MacBook in there!

Definitely need to be very organised with dry bags otherwise living out of one is frustrating.

As for dirt and mud, even with the super solid salt/dust/mud combination I just hosed it off - no issues. And so far had no problems with zip, as it has a flap which covers it and stops majority of stuff getting stuck in there.

I have never encountered mud, clay, sand, or road salt as insidious as calcium chloride. The leg zips on my overpants started to pack up, was able to clean and lube to get home, but a short time later they failed completely.

When I was up Yukon way I had mostly hard luggage but also had a zippless tank bag -- drawstring under the velcro'd down "cap" that included the map window. All that luggage survived very well.

I have also used roll-top soft luggage and I believe it would have survived the calcium chloride pretty well since mine have largish buckles. I don't really like roll-top, but it is simple, waterproof, and secure (not theft-proof secure, but stays-in-place secure).