Originally Posted by adamrice

My wife commutes by bike occasionally, and will probably be doing so more now that her office has moved. She started out by borrowing my Ortlieb Sport Packers, but complained that the pannier weight was a big fraction of her total carried load. So I got her Arkel Dry-Lites, which are super lightweight but a PITA to mount, unmount, and carry around.

So I seek the happy medium: something that's reasonably lightweight, but also reasonably convenient. I know that using only one pannier is an easy way to save weight, but she greatly prefers to have her load distributed between two. Any recommendations?