Bike pannniers - why not on the front.

[Alexlebrit]

Ok, this is possibly a dumb question from a newbie to motorbike touring, but, why are motorbikes alwas loaded at the rear (bar a tank bag) and not at the front. I've done a lot of cycle touring, and we always have front and rear panniers.

The fronts are always smaller 20-30 litre bags but I often end up packing my food in them so I can keep an eye on it, so they'll probably weigh in at about the 10-15 kilos each. They never seem to make much difference to the cycles handling, and I can happily ride hands off. They even make racks now for front suspension bikes.

I never seen this for motorbikes though. The ideal would be to have it mounted on the sprung side of the suspension, but that wouldn't be too hard to make up especially with upside-down forks. I'd have thought it'd be a great place for extra fuel for instance, as it's out of the way and would be well protected by the wheel itself.

Any reason why this doesn't happen on motorbikes? Or have I just come up with a revolution in bike luggage whic I won't have the money to develop?