Originally Posted by
Bike Jedi
Front can be harder choice. You already have the waterproofness in the rear so if you have stuff that does not need to stay dry you could use non-waterproof front panniers. (I do not consider coated nylon to be waterproof.)
And some of teh newer bikes have a three bolt system on the forks for Salsa Anything cages, thus a dry bag on each side can be used instead of panniers, this is lighter than panniers but less volume.
And you could use either a conventional handlebar bag or a newer style bikepacking harness type of system that hangs from your handlebar. Could use this instead of or in addition to luggage mounted lower down on your fork.
First step, figure out how much volume you really need at this point.
Some trips I will have a lot of volume on top of the rear panniers in a dry bag or something like that. In post number 2 above you saw I had a 31 liter Ortlieb Rack Pack and an additional drybag on top of the rear rack. But some trips I have almost nothing on top of the rear panniers, in the photo below all I have on top of the rear rack is a tent pole bag but this was a short tour of only a week and the photo was taken after most of our food was already eaten.
