Excellent Value Metal Panniers

[Yellow Peril]

Well mine is a shrine to metal work and gets used, bit like the bike. Not something to be admired and polished.

 

[Phil Clarke]

Shaun
How did you lower yours on your 12?
Phil

 

[Yellow Peril]

I fabricated two new holder frames making the bottom holders two inches lower, the rest of the frame is exactly the same. Does that make sense? The new frames made out of 3mm aluminium cost me another £30 ish (including the powder coating and some specialized folding) and a few hours work. I would post pic but they are currently off being powder coated. But I have test run them with no problems, IMHO they do look far better lower and now can be used with a roll bag all the way across the panniers with no dip in the middle.

 

[Tsiklonaut]

They are provokingly wide imho - look at the gap between the bike and pannier - goosh! I can almost put myself between the bike and the pannier to work on rear wheel . I can imagine the fuel consumption and sense their hazard (sidewind sensitivity) on high speeds... And if they're haning out that far from the bike with those "long legs" of supporting frame, well, on the high speed crash you can be almost certan they fly away leaving your legs and bones vanureble - simple law of Newton phisics for strenght of forces acting to object is given by the lenght of torque arm (which in current scene are those looooong "legged" mounting frame tubes separating panniers from the bike) multiplyed by mass. It also gives idea how much stress the mounting frame takes on loading up the panniers with massive stuff.

How thick the aluminium is btw? 1.5mm or even 1mm? They look so fragile design for my eyes at least.

For serious adventure travelling I'd go for Verns or other that are correctly and properly mounted with exhaust cutout and thinner setup and with better aerodynamics and with no redicolous huge locks hanging on mounting frame (who the hell came up with this idea afterall? ).

Just some of mine critique. That pannier setup is very probably exacly as much worth as their very low price is...

Cheers, Margus

 

[Yellow Peril]

Marcus I would not disagree with you entirely, the one thing I like is the ease of getting rid of the pannier supports. I did look at Jesses which I must admit did appeal to me and their mounting solution, but just did not like the shape of them. Have seen Touratech panniers (normal ones) they are very similar leaving a similar gap on the exhaust side.

I like the idea of being able to take off the frames as well as the panniers, which if I have read Verns site correctly Verns are a little more difficult. Being honest the bike has a mixed life and I really don't want frames/panniers attached premanently to the bike.

Leading on from my last point, my pockets ain't that deep, seeing the cost of 3mm aluminium sheet I could not in all honesty justify the cost of the most popular makes i.e Touratech, Jesse or even Verns. As the chances of me going on LWR trip in the near future is unlikely.

As to an accident having been though one bad one, the speed required to do the things you say would happen I probably ain't going to being smiling anyway and I would have thought me and the bike would have already parted company. Also if you have a look at Boz's trip the panniers are taking a fair battering and are still going.

And lets put a myth to bed, double welding will make the weld very tough but because of the process involved either side of the weld is not as strong as the original material. Rolled joints do not suffer this problem and the top and joint are the best part of 5-7mm thick which makes them far stronger than a welded joint.

 

[MikeP]

Also if you have a look at Boz's trip the panniers are taking a fair battering and are still going.

Boz certainly rates the panniers for being easy to bash out after a prang but he's less impressed with the frames after a few more tumbles.

That said he is putting them to a fairly extreme test!

 

[Phil Clarke]

Thanks for that Shaun I was thinking of cutting, bending and welding the frame mounting bars but your mod looks easier. I may do that depending on how difficult it is for my girlfriend to climb on the back.
Phil

 

[dirtydog]

I think I may have to go to college and do a bit of engineering before I attempt to fit these panniers

I noticed some wire and connectors in the bag, is there any chopping of the indicators wiring required?

 

[dirtydog]

OK, it weren't that bad!

Great kit, everything there unlike MFI flatpacks.

Excellent value pannier kit. Apart from being on the 'wide side', I can't fault them. Cheers Paul!

Got bits left over though

 

[the civil one]

Dave

Can you retain the standard system rails? I'm looking for some large panniers but as the system setup is fine most of the time was thinking of getting some global lids but these, if I can retain the rails would seem like an ideal alternative.

Dave

Dave Touratech do a "Street Version "
Which attach to the Std BMW Mounting Brackets for the 1150.

 

[Harry Flashman]

I fabricated two new holder frames making the bottom holders two inches lower, the rest of the frame is exactly the same. Does that make sense? The new frames made out of 3mm aluminium cost me another £30 ish (including the powder coating and some specialized folding) and a few hours work. I would post pic but they are currently off being powder coated. But I have test run them with no problems, IMHO they do look far better lower and now can be used with a roll bag all the way across the panniers with no dip in the middle.

ShaunT279, could you please post instructions/photos of the modifications you made in order to have the panniers sit lower on the 1200...the more detail the better. Thanks in advance.

 

[Global Rider]

Those look identical to the ones from Därr. Depending on size, they were about £60 each which is tough to beat! It looks like the same bag is going under various names.

I put a set of them on my KLR 650 and they've held up well considering how heavily they were loaded and how rough the roads were that I drove on.

I used the Touratech mounting kits to attach them to my racks.