I just came across this adventurer's blog, Lusaka to London on a bamboo bicycle. He arrived for the opening of the Paralympics.

The bike is from Zambikes.

There's a picture of the front rack here.




The joints, as on the bike itself, are made from hemp soaked in epoxy resin, wound tightly round the components as appropriate, lacquered and polished.
FAQ’s | Zamboo Bikes - Bamboo Road Bikes

The bikes are now obtainable in London.
Mmmmmm

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

If you are riding solo, I have always thought it a good idea to just rest the frame assembly on the rear seat. The cushioning will act as suspension and reduce shock loads from your bags.

When I first started this thread I was a hard pannier fan, but like a lot of people I've changed my position and am now thinking soft-luggage is the way forward. If nothing else it'll be easier to store note I've moved from a French house with garage to a London flat with tiny shed.

But I'm not yet convinced by any of the soft luggage available, it's either too small, the wrong shape, or most importantly the wrong price.

So I'm contemplating a semi-rigid system, the plan is to ditch a full rack in preference for something which simply keeps the luggage off my high exhaust. That way it won't need to be as sturdy, nor as complicated to fabricate given I only have a shed. I know Chris and I have discussed the merits of a rack (on his site) in providing addition triangulation, so the plan is to run a single tube from the pillion pegs up over the exhaust to the rear rack attachment points.

Now attaching the luggage. Again Chris on his site has brought up one of the problems of throwover luggage, the fact that it's hard to consistently put the luggage in the right place especially when tired or rushed. So rather than straps going from one bag to the other I'm thinking of a harness which straps firmly over and under the seat, staying in place and onto which attach the bags, probably with large side-release clips.



This hopefully solves the problem of consistent attachment points.

And now the semi-rigid luggage itself. The plan here is to separate the functions, support, crash-resistance, water-proofing. What I have in mind is a U-shaped piece of flexible plastic (an old water drum) which hangs from the harness. Each side will have eyelets punched through, and through these a web of paracord so that the the luggage can be compressed to suit the contents. Something like this:



The idea then is to put waterproof stuff sacks inside, as many or as few as required, tighten the paracord, then fold the to over and secure with buckles. It means for instance that you can have a stuff sack full off all your heavy items at the bottom, with another on top for lighter stuff. Also I can quickly shed my waterproofs and just stuff them into the paracord web.

Hopefully this long waffling ramble makes some sense, and if anyone's got thoughts, comments, or wants to shout "No!" feel free.

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Now I was going to say that great minds think alike, but you'd probably (and rightly so) feel insulted .

This however is as far as I've got along similar lines albiet with an existing rack in place:

https://sites.google.com/site/poorat...i/platey-thing

The "Green Range" is of course the old National service type army pack with a lot of the straps cut off and replaces with plastic clips. The "Platey thing" though allows said clips to be secured in multiple directions under the bag so the strap takes the weight of the load rather than just having the structure of the bag (particularly the stitching) in shear.

I get my soft bags on in 2 minutes (there is some strap tensioning) and off in 30 seconds, so on that score at least as good as plastic boxes.

I love your string bag idea though and now propose to plagerise it mercilessly (sorry ).

Andy

And also with the bike on a side-stand makes it a big faff as well.

I used Ortlieb Cycle panniers bought second hand. They just clip on.

I knew that the clips wouldn't stand up to rattling around trail-riding so used a couple of cam-straps to cinch everything up tight.

The whole setup worked really well. While camped for the night, I left the straps looped slack on the rack. In the morning, load panniers, clip on, tighten straps, ride off.
They are perhaps a little small for some but that was deliberate; stopped me carrying too much crap.

Under the seat is actually a good idea for any throwover, I realised. Makes them mildly less nickable, and will say put when empty.

It looks a bit 'pikey' to me (insert 'pot call kettle black' emoticon here ;-) but the great thing is it costs next to nothing to try it out, plus you can easily repair or replace on the road. I think I'd get a general purpose [dry] bag the right shape and bung all your stuff in that and then in your harness. And I'd rivet on a PVC 'bellows' front and back and use short cam straps instead of the laces to do the tension. A bit more protection.
Look forward to seeing a finished version. You could chop of out of one of these (as BoB Andy used in a cradle on his CCM) though that would be box shape not curve. if you want the more common squarer shape 30L ones, I found car washes have them going spare (ex soap), but they get a bit wide unless you can heat and reform.

I know the problem of not having the luxury of anywhere to work other than a landing or kitchen, with limits what can actually be made but encourages lateral thinking. Where I'm staying now I'm renting a farmer's workshop which helps a lot.

I've also coming round to a plate. That pipe clamp idea was a wild goose chase - see green edit on earlier post.

The way I see it a plate replicates the rigidity of a welded 18mm rectangle which most OTS racks are based on, but can be cut from a slab of ally, plastic or wood and if thick enough, bolted straight to a bike subframe, eliminating an OTS rack.
You can then trim, drill holes or slots or screw/bolt on fittings as you like. Much more versatile than a rectangle of tube.

I happened to find a broken slab of chopping board-like nylon on a beach. A bit warped but at 10mm thick ought to be stiff enough to do the job combined with my half-finished metal frame.

Ortlieb Cycle pannier system brilliant - I can testify to that - but for me way too small for moto overlanding and as BYT says, probably not tough enough for moto forces without loop strap support. It's telling their QL2 moto version only clips to 16mm tube max - as if to discourage use with most OTS 18mm racks.


Ch

Pikey? Pikey? Yes I know what you mean, I'm working on that. Drifting towards the idea of the plastic being shaped more like an unfolded envelope (if that makes sense?) which would give a bit more protection at the sides and somewhere to attach external pockets. I tend to thrash out every possible permutation in my head before making so it could be a while, and I'm still not certain this is any better than tweaked fabric panniers anyway, maybe just use the plastic inside a fabric pannier, after all? I'm definitely going to work on the under/over seat attachment thingy though, although it occurred to me that even easier might be to attach short pieces of webbing directly to the bike's frame with clips/buckles on the other end to attach the panniers to.

I know in my mind I'm always partly thinking "how would I put this into production so that it works on a range of bikes?" in which case it needs to be adjustable and my idea of it going over and under the seat is simpler, but for a one off then attaching directly to the bike's frame is probably better.

Mind you it's all got to be better than this, cargo nets and hotel laundry bags.



But in the meantime I stumbled across this video of a rack for fabric panniers, professionally made, and thought I'd post it up in case it gave anyone any ideas.



Chris I'm hoping the machined aluminium clamps I posted might be helpful, I've just ordered a few to see what quality/strength is like, when they turn up I'll let you know.

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I like that low-profile platform rack, looks properly made too.
Who makes that? I'd go as far as buying and adapting that if the price was normal and dims and attachment points were in the ball park.

One idea I've had, based on how I interpreted the vaguely similar 'Angolan' rack, was adding a same ø bar above the bottom main tube (welded), or behind and above it, as pictured below (easily clamped).

That way, for less rigid soft bags you can slot in (or hinge down) a board which will be cantilevered off the added back bar and platform edge, giving you width support when needed. Should you fall or need slimness (to get through a hotel door), the board will either slot out, flip up or just come away, and should it break is the sort of thing that's not hard to replace on the road. Plus its use is optional anyway. The Angolan rack works in a similar way, but uses fixed tubing - bend prone maybe but also less likely to come away and get caught in the spokes as a loose board may do.
Tubed rectangle or wooden board, I like the idea of a cantilevered, hinge-out platform.

I know what you mean about thinking a lot before taking action, especially when resources or a location to take action are limited. You want to get it right first time. I like the idea of clips permanently attached to the pillion peg area and rear of a frame to fix the bottom of the pans and stop them swinging. One less thing to fiddle with and those clips are light to carry as spares, and easy to replace, even with a knot if you can't sew at the time.

I'm not sure how I could use those ally clamps which seem to be hose guides rather than weight bearing. Anyway, as mentioned I've ditched the clamp assembly idea and have nearly finished my slackrack which has been fun to figure out but could get thrown in a skip if something better comes along (or if it falls apart on the first speed bump...). All would be so much simpler if a proper luggage rack was available for my bike that wasn't set too far back.

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