Of course it all depends where one rides, or plans to ride. For me rigid alu boxes for tarmac with or w/o gravel roads, and soft for off-road riding. In Morocco for 2 week last month I used a combination of soft and hard luggage, Kriega overland on the left side for all my clothes and soft stuff, and a recycled Pelican briefcase with a Rotopax 1 gallon water canister and a Kriega US-5 (first-aid kit, hi-viz vest) bolted on it to carry the hardware, tools, spares, camp stove, and chain lube attached outside. This is IMHO the best setup I could come up with given the harsh terrain, ideal as I did drop the bike a few times. I'd destroyed my TT alu boxes big time otherwise. Also very happy I had the tank protection. Here's a picture. Ride on!

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Sounds pretty sensible to me. I switched from soft to hard for European touring years back and would never go back but have gone soft again for my African jaunt.

Nice pic too!

Another often overlooked but seriously important factor to any luggage setup is width. I see some seriously wide setups that extends beyond the width of the handlebars. Cats don't have whiskers for nothing. Nature figures it out but it's often ignored.

https://youtu.be/EQgaZ_jc-aM
Minute 33.55 of the vid shows what a wide setup does to an expensive hard pannier.

Second the handling. Riding a bikes is very dynamic and requires frequent rotation along the bike axis. Tight rope walkers use long poles to slow this movement down. It's to do with the moment of inertia. For all the physics lovers this is I=mr2 where m is mass and r is radius from the axis of rotation. This is squared making it twice as important than weight. Another reason why I hate needing steel racks.

Keep it light and keep it tight.


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One thing I haven't seen in this thread is soft luggage's vulerability to termites.



I put my luggage away while waiting for spare parts to get my bike running again in Congo. Some weeks later I thought I'm ready to go again, but nope. Need some stitching done.

Hard or Soft ... or BOTH ... there will always be those who have no idea how to travel light.


How W I D E is too wide??

Yea, but Termites can get into your clothing and other vulnerable items that are inside your Hard Alu cases too. Once they get into your clothing bags .... same result.

Easy solution. Keep a few Moth Balls in your cases or bags. I use Dryer strips from GAIN detergent. (used to condition clothing when in dryer)
God knows what horrible chemical this useless product has in them ... but they do keep bugs out, probably Termites too! Also keeps Mosquito's away ... I keep one in each pocket of my riding jacket. The Gain dryer strips actually seem to help!

Sound advice mollydog!

I'm planning for another Africa trip (have done a few already) and I'm trying to decide whether I want to get hard or soft side panniers. Actually I know that I prefer to ride with soft ones, because they are less likely to break if the bike drops and generally more flexible, but I'm worried about the fact that it might be easier for them to get stolen.

In total I've done 18 African land border crossing on my last trip, and most of those involved leaving the bike unattended for at least a few minutes to go into some house and get the permits to cross the border. That's exactly the moment when I'd be worried with soft luggage because I think some random guy might decide to take some of them off the bike, with hard boxes that's less likely to happen.

Do you guys consider theft when you decide between hard/soft boxes?

Ive broken into both. A Touratech box supports the cheap nasty lock for you while you place the screwdriver and give a single sharp tap. Five seconds later you are in and look like a biker rummaging through his grungies. Cutting the nylon straps on a cheap Oxford panniers with a Stanleyknife takes minutes throughout which you may as well be wearing a stripey suite and mask.

500 quid boxes generally contain something worth having. Backpackers cheap packs generally contain something not worth touching without rubber gloves and full set of injections.

Andy

Well having done all those borders you'll know that you have to be prepared for some light fingered person to do a bit of informal wealth distribution while you're not looking, which is why everything you really really need is in your tank bag which never gets left anywhere, even for a minute.

My Mosko Backcountry 35s (yeah I'm a fanboy, as the Americans would have it) have a roll down inner and a roll down top, so that's two things that have to be undone before you can go rifling inside (assuming it's not a slash job) . I assumed that no luggage gives much protection to theft, so my priority was crashability which meant I went for soft bags, and I didn't regret it- no theft (8 borders on the last trip IIRC including Tunduma which is as mad as any) and no damage after three offs.

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Haha, Tunduma, I've crossed there too in 2013 and it was hilarious. I especially liked the car graveyard with all the cars that somebody failed to bring across the border, some of them must have been there for decades.

I think you guys are right, I'll probably go with some soft ones and if necessary just pay somebody to watch them for a few minutes.

My 2 cents :

I've travelled the last 3 months in Europe and Central Asia with my Honda NC700X equipped with Touratech Zega Pro 2, 31 liters each.

It's perfect in Europe where roads are correct, but on bad roads/tracks next time I will definitely go for soft luggages.
One of my Zega pannier, after 10000 km of bad roads in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, decided to recover its freedom
--> bottom supporting bar of the pannier bended... I "repaired" it in 10min on the side of the road, then made a correct repair back in France (5000 km later...)

I must say that it was much too loaded, I think around 20-25kg including the 5 liters fuel tank fixed to the pannier (plus the weight of the rackpack above).
The limit indicated by Touratech (15kg) must be followed, especially on bad roads. With the other pannier, respecting the 15kg limit, no problem. And the bended part was relative to the Pro 2 quick release system. With the Pro version, I would not have encountered this problem.

That being said, it's very useful to have waterproof, quickly released panniers with lockers.
But honnestly soft panniers 2 to 4 times less expensive will have made the job.

But now that I'm back to France I'm glad to have these panniers very practical for daily use (especially because I've chosen the 31 liters narrow model).

Hello


First I thought Photoshop, but there are pegs underneath.
Where can I get these?
Get some short skis under that and no more problems in the snow.


sushi

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So tell me again how you would be expected to go around bends with these!!!!!

You can;'t beat this for soft luggage that does not need a rack for any bike 250cc - 1200cc

Reckless 80L System (v2.0) | Mosko Moto

check it out. I just ordered for my NX400 Honda Falcon I ride in South America.

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