Another touring Question (Sorry)

What have people found easier..

Panniers?

Or a Trailer?

on road or off road?

Saddlebag 😛

Sorry, Should have said..

Tts for this http://www.cycling-loire.com/

So road(ish) mainly..

You’d be fine with either then, I’d imagine.

Personally, I use panniers, but I have a friend who has a bob trailer, and that is fine on smooth stuff – manageable off road, but a bit too ‘lively’ sometimes.

How much kit are you taking? Bivy/Tent/B&B ?

T2, if you’re credit card touring, Id highly recommend going lightweight – bar bag/saddle bag. Or beam post and rack pack.

If camping and not lightweight, then panniers for both of you mean you can pack the Mrs ones with the light high volume stuff, and you can lug the heavy stuff.

ah yes, be careful of the age old trailer problem… if there are two of you touring, and you are towing the trailer – you will be lugging ALL the kit!

better to split it between you, so you aren’t utterly destroyed while your partner is fresh.

Shouldn’t this touring stuff be on the bike forum?

I’d favour panniers myself if I had the bike for it.

Advantages and disadvantages to both

Panniers keeps it all compact and makes it easier to park the bike / get thru gates etc.

Trailers spoil the handling less. for that sort of trip I would go with panniers but my next offroad tour I am going to try a trailer

If you’re touring with a trailer, you’re carrying too much kit (IMO). Leave the creature comforts at home. Pare it down to the minimum and free yourself of all the clutter of daily life! Panniers should be fine but saddlebags and bar bags are ace!

Panniers if you’re not going for Stoners suggestion 🙂 You really dont need any more capacity. DGOAB and I did a month in Spain and Portugal last year with camping kit and still only had each pannier about 3/4 full (at the start when they were properly packed obviously, once you realise you have excess space you stop packing so carefully).

Mol – check out freeload racks – you have the bike for it!

Last year for Glasgow to Durness via Arran and Western Isles I had Panniers, mate had trailer.

Both had plus and minus points, but got there with no problems. We both took our own small 2 man tents. For rougher ground, trailer would be better, I preferred pannier on the road.

Brilliant way to travel is by bike….

I reckon you can enjoy riding more with a decent set of panniers. You do feel the weight on the back but you can still do just about everything with them. A trailer makes you longer and you always have to think about the extra length. I reckon it might add more drag too with an extra wheel, but I’ve no evidence for that 🙂

I’d always choose panniers unless I had too much weight.

I’m planning a bike/train trip with the family – train to seaside, cycle 10 miles to campsite, camp for a week – which will see me carrying all the gear and two kids in panniers and trailer by way of handicap. It’ll be fun 🙂

If you are going abroad…4 x panniers are just about possible on a plane but a PITA (if they charge per bag)…trailer? I think you’d struggle or have to bend over big-time.

If you’re touring with a trailer, you’re carrying too much kit (IMO).

+1

We used to credit card tour on a tandem with just rear panniers – ie 1 pannier each. Have even done short camping trips like that with mini-aracer (before he was up to riding the back of the tandem I even did a camping trip with him on a kiddy seat and panniers).

I have tried offroad touring with a Bob and its a complete pain in the arse. The base of the trailer gets caught on rocks the whole time, getting over even a small ditch is a PITA and if the wheel gets caught in the muck, it can really wrench your frame.

If you are going abroad…4 x panniers are just about possible on a plane but a PITA (if they charge per bag)

If they charge per bag, just attach the panniers together or take one big duffel to put them all in.

Yup, you can fit a lot on a bike w/o a trailer, I rode 40 miles to Geneva like this…not recommending it mind! 😉

EDIT – aracer, I did take a big duffle, and a PITA it was.

cynic-al – Member

If you are going abroad…4 x panniers are just about possible on a plane but a PITA (if they charge per bag)…trailer? I think you’d struggle or have to bend over big-time.

Not an issue – done it several times with panniers. Have you?

One pannier checked as hold luggage one as hand luggage

Will be driving down to the start point. and thinking of camping.. so looks like panniers it is..

Cheers all. 🙂

molgrips – Member
Shouldn’t this touring stuff be on the bike forum?

Yeah, probabaly should… but hey, thought I’d be wreckless…

I said 4 panniers – and I also had the bar bag – and yes I have done it several times (see that picture above) I speak from experience.

Jeez Al..

What where you carrying there???

wouldn’t bother with a trailer for a non-camping trip. love mine for when you need a bit more stuff. being warm, dry and having a tent you can sit up in far outweigh negatives of towing a trailer for me. never had to think about trailer when riding, it followed wherever i went.

My GF did scotland with just heavily loaded rear panniers and had all sorts of problems in terms of an unweighted front end.

messy handling and impossible to push the bike as it constantly falls over because if it starts to fall the front end comes off the ground when you try and stop it. Make sure you get at least a heavy bar bag but better 4 panniers even if you have extra room

IMO

I’d toured with all but the box, the box contained a few things I’d posted to myself for PPDS, stuff I’d bought, and also the duffle bag.

EDIT and a bike bag!

Having said all that about light weight…. I do have this urge to buy one of those bell tents (20kg) and a trailer to take the GF bike glamping…

Cling film is your friend for flying. We took 1 pannier each as hand luggage and wrapped the other two together, with bar bags, to make 1 piece of checked baggage between us (plus bikes).

Don’t need to carry an extra duffel for the sake of a flight as a roll of the cheapest cling will do the job. Just wrap it at the airport to make carrying easier – the transport police in Madrid did keep an eye on us as we packed outside the airport metro station though 🙂

EDIT – our checked ‘bag’ was still ~1/2 the weight limit for easyjet and had most of our heavy stuff in it.

Riding across northern spain we met these two german guys:
(didnt get the camera out quick enough to get a better shot of: lo-riders, panniers, bar bags, rack packs all stuffed to bursting on both bikes)

while we were riding with this:

This lot + the clothes we stood in.

This lot + the clothes we stood in.

Credit card touring?

being warm, dry and having a tent you can sit up in far outweigh negatives of towing a trailer for me.

Better yet to be warm, dry and have a tent you can sit up in which all fits on the bike with panniers. I’ve managed that on the tandem with just rear panniers, so I don’t see why it should be so difficult with rather more luggage capability on solo bikes. I have to admit I am thinking about front panniers for this year if I take both my boys with me.

Heh – you can always spot the Dutch/Germans; the taps from their kitchen sink stick out the top of their panniers 🙂

IGMC…

Credit card touring?

nope, tent roll on top of one bag, thermarests on the other.
Down duvet, cooking pots etc inside the bags

http://pompinos.blogspot.com/

Carry as little as you can. Want to borrow some old but perfectly fine panniers to try?

Stoner – Member

Credit card touring?

nope

Oh right, fair play then… very compact 🙂

Better yet to be warm, dry and have a tent you can sit up in which all fits on the bike with panniers

In your opinion. I prefer a trailer over panniers any day of the week, nothing else on the bike at all. Having to camp in bad weather in a tent like Stoner’s would make me miserable. The trailer’s main advantage for me is being able to take bulk rather than weight.

What do folk do for bike bags on flights then?

Cling film 😉

Just found the first issue with taking a rack- My Cove has no Rackmounts… 😐

Arse.

🙁

You can get P-clips to help this and also seat tube mounted racks.

I would not want to put much weight on either though tbh. Looks like a trailer is in your future.

My Cove has no Rackmounts

p-clips?

On a related note, and one that is occurring to me as I am sorting kit out for a Hebridean tour in April, but what do people do for security of bikes when sleeping on tours? Do you take a lightweight cable lock and hope for the best or take the weight hit and take something more proper? Also, how do you lock your bikes when wild camping? Just to each other and hope no one finds you?