I too use the Oxford soft panniers with plastic buckles, for a trip to Morocco on an XT600E last Easter. After several days of bouncing around the Atlas mountains the plastic buckles on first one side, then the other, snapped. It wasn't really a problem, as enough of the buckle survived to re-tie the panniers to the bike, but did cause me to backtrack about 5km to find the wayward pannier by the side of the piste!

In the future I'm going to try out the Zega boxes, to see how they compare.

Iain.

'01 XRV750

Soft luggage is my choice and for all of you in England: I used ex army bags ( the large ones) Only cost 15 quid a pair, waterproof, taken many a crash in their stride but need a rack to support them.
Cheap and durable unlike most of the specialist bike accsesories.
Top box is a good idea for those expensive items
andy

Out of an experience just a couple weeks ago:
* Hard panniers take the force of a crash, and yes so wil the backpart of your bike, but your legs will have some extra space without getting stuck under the bike in a crash. The pannier itself is scratched, but I was happy that I could hop on my bike again and ride on.

I have a Honda Transalp with 2 side-panniers from Honda.They look nice, but are probable not ideal for long trips on dirt roads and pistes wihtout any modifications.
I will put extra straps around them to avoid them getting banged off on bumpy roads. Since there is only one key-lock, the straps will also be an extra safety to keep them from opening while driving.
If I had know about those great aluminium boxes I would probably have bought a set of those. That will be for the next one.

The cheapest options for metal panniers that I have seen are:

1) Swiss Army Ammo boxes £20.00 each but you need to make a rack
2) Darr panniers £50.00 each

Have looked at making my own but more hassle than its worth.

I chose touratech panniers as they are built very well and are cheaper than Hepcko(Not sure of spelling) Am having my racks hand built as don't like the way that the stadard rack works.

If anyone wants to see pick of the 2 options shown a above, drop me a line as have piccies of these fitted.

Julio

What the heck, I'll wade into the eternal question and keep this topic going. I use Ortleib soft bags on my KLR. They're fairly cheap (<$200) and totally waterproof: some kind of rubber impregnated fabric. I bent a pot in a crash last year but otherwise have had no problems.

A friend made some cases from army surplus ammo cases (the really big stuff) but they are VERY heavy. They were cheap (but you need a rack to bolt them to) and are nearly indestructable (thanks to Uncle Sam's generosity with our tax dollars) and waterproof.

Kurt

Year 2016 and I still cant decide between soft and hard luggage

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No Electronics...Pure Power... Pure Japan... Pure Skill!!! - KLE 500

Lots of major changes to both soft and hard luggage since this ANCIENT thread was began back in 2000! 16 years ago? ... And I only recognize one or two riders who are still around HUBB today.

Where are all these guys/gals today ... most all under 30 posts.

Atilla,
There are at least three or four other threads about Soft Vs. Hard luggage. Do a bit of a search ... I'm sure you'll have enough reading for a month!

For me, the choice depends on a few things:
Type of ride intended (mostly On Road or mostly Off Road)?
Which Bike?
Roads you will mostly ride on? (easy or hard)
Camping or Hotels?
How long on the road?

Best thing you can do is travel with BOTH systems ... then decide which works best for you. I've done both over the years, prefer soft for most of my travels but use HARD luggage on some road rides within USA.

I would say that's very true mollydog, you will need to try both,

Does the helmet locker cupboard bit in the middle of my NC count as hard? In which case I've changed my mind (again).

Andy

Wait till "Ted" sees this thread, pity if you ride a BMW as well lol

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....rather Die Living.....than Live Dying !
www.globetrekkers.net.au

I have hard panniers & my wife has soft....to be honest I personally think if I were on a shorter trip say 2 mths or less I would lean towards soft, as usually these sort of trips you are on limited time & don't tend to hang around to much, but if you were on world trip or even 6-12mths I would go hard, as it is just so much easier & safety comes into as well on the longer trips (yes Ted Simon changed to soft 'blah blah blah, but one sparrow does not make a summer)
But at the end of the day it's what you want, soft is obviously cheaper tho.
Most of the hardened long term travellers that I have met all have hard.

Cheers
Paul

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....rather Die Living.....than Live Dying !
www.globetrekkers.net.au

Hard isn't safer. It's just appearance.

Personally I would go soft for various reasons. Molly is absolutely right though. It's all circumstantial. Plus of soft is less bulk, weight, cost and hassle.

Both my international bike tripsi used bulk because I didn't know any better. There wasn't as much choice in soft as now. More options in hard. Plus it's all you saw them. The shift to soft isn't without reason.

From the moment I bought and handled loaded hard luggage I tried to fix it's short comings. Handing a fully loaded hard case is like handling a fully loaded samsonite suit case without wheels. It sucks. Made my own hard luggage the second time. Still sucked but that's because I changed my riding preference to single trail dirt. Panniers were ok, but top box sucked.

Don't like anything that needs racks due to weight and positioning of the weight, and non rack soft luggage is either too small or it's not positioned right. So I made my own again. But any soft luggage far outweighs in hard in terms of bike handling. Not an issue on >80kph roads. Anything else it does. It still depends on your personal tolerance to the consequences of adding weight though, which is what it all comes down to in the end.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

A few negatives on Hard Boxes/panniers from my own experience and those of riding partners and from EXTENSIVE reading of ride reports the last 20 years.

1. You may "feel" your gear is more secure when leaving your hard panniers, but it's really not hard to break into them. But ... if it makes you feel relaxed ... then that is OK too! To most, they LOOK strong. To a thief, he's already got a screwdriver to pop them open. ... In 30 seconds.

With my soft bags I use "inner bags", so at night, the inner bags come into Hotel, easy and fast, panniers stay on bike.
Of course you can do same with hard boxes. Inner bags are good!

Out on the street you have to use more care leaving soft bags unattended depending where you are. 80% of the time, never a threat of theft. Use caution in Cities of course.

2. Safety again. Broken legs! Most know of the stories of a rider's leg being trapped by metal pannier by fully loaded bike and broken. Or how much it hurts when you're paddling through sand and the pannier WHACKS the back of your leg! OUCH!
Granted, fairly rare thing but it does happen. If you fall with hard Alu boxes ... get your legs CLEAR of the bike if you can!

3. Crashing
No question Soft bags are better if you fall, not only because of the broken leg safety issue mentioned above but because of DAMAGE to a metal pannier.

On one trip one of our riding companions hard metal bags would not shut properly.(he had fallen a couple times) Several Metal Smiths tried to straighten them out without much success. He used a Bungee Cord to secure it. It could never lock.

Heard several similar stories about damaged metal panniers. Pelican Plastic boxes fair better, as do some GIVI plastic cases. Alu boxes make a nice picnic table and are great for placing stickers (the principle reason, IMO, why most like the big boxes better!!! ) but if you fall you always risk tweaking them out of shape, making them UNUSABLE.

4. WEIGHT
This is a big one, IMO, especially if riding off road or Two Up. If you never go off road, then, IMO, hard Alu boxes are fine. But once I adapted to soft bags and developed a good "inner bag" system, I've been happy.
When I switched from plastic (very light) E43 Givi boxes to Soft panniers, I was able to knock off 30 lbs. total! That is A LOT of weight on a 650 dual sport bike!
On an overloaded R1200GS, maybe not such a big deal, but on my bike I could really feel the difference, especially OFF road.

5. COST
This ones obvious if you've shopped around, although the prices for recent so called ADVENTURE soft luggage has gone WAY HIGH, IMO.

I paid $100 for my current set of Nelson-Rigg soft panniers. I don't care if they break, tear or wear out. They are expendable. Don't believe for an instant that your $800 panniers won't wear out just the same way ... and hard Alu panniers (around $1200 to $1800) also can get damaged or ruined over time.

I think that the above is an often overlooked point. I've just picked up a lovely light (compared to my Tiger 800) G650X and wouldn't dream of putting hard luggage on it. It's light, thats the point. Two soft bags, 5kg. Two aluminium boxes, 20kg. Simple choice.

On the Tiger I don't go out of my way to avoid weight, or to remove it. It's heavy regardless of what I strap to it!

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[ Tim | History - NW Italy/French Rivera, Swiss Alps, Morocco | 2016 - Greece > Albania > Macedonia > Kosovo > Montenegro > Bosnia > Slovenia > Austria ]

I'm not sure what your frame of reference is, but if your pannier is 20kg, then maybe you're buying the wrong one?

My panniers, fully loaded with gear, including 2l of water each, tools, cooking etc. is 20kg.

There is may be a 3kg difference between my unloaded pannier and soft luggage.

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Squily