Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
- I recall several months ago reading on this forum that one guy took all his gear out of a pannier, filled it up with water from a garden hose, used that to find the leak in his tube, patched his tube, put his stuff back in the Ortlieb (presumably after draining out the water first) and continued on his way.
Ya, that was me, a couple of summers ago. My spare tube had been kicking around for so long in my seat bag it had a rub worn unrepairable hole in it, so found an apt building with a tap out back and found the hole in existing tube in when to patch.
After putting all my stuff back in the bag and wondering why the bike was leaning heavily to one side as I ride away wobbly, I then emptied the water and rung out my clothes ;-)
I would add that these were my 20yr old roller pluses, they must be 21 of 22 years old now. At the time they were the only waterproof panniers sold here, a bit expensive for me at the time, maybe 150 bucks, but I loved the waterproofness, the attachment system (have had panniers pop off bikes before) and frankly, the fact that they are still in use by members of my family shows up the old adage of " I'm too poor to buy cheap stuff "
A couple of times over the years I've tried to convince my wife not to buy cheap panniers, but she would never listen and has bought a couple of them because she liked how cute they looked. so it made me laugh last month when I set up an old hybrid for her to commute on anexpensive fork one of these 22 year old ortliebs and then a few days later stated, "these are great panniers! They stay on, I can fit stuff in easily, waterproof..... "
Gotta love north american consumer society attitudes, buying a well made item that you will use regularly is most often better off in the long run, and even short term.
The old ones are quite a bit lighter than recent ones. I'll put up a pannier comparison one day, have been meaning to do so for a while.