Soft Panniers - Impression

SOFT VS. HARD PANNIERS: IMPRESSION

 

 Pic: Stan's Bandit with Nelson Rigg CL-855 panniers; little dog is an optional extra. 

In contrast to my hard-pannier BMW Boxer days, I bought soft panniers for the Bandit. (Note, despite having stiffeners that make them semi-rigid, “soft pannier/s” refers to all non-rigid panniers.)

 
Soft panniers are a new experience for me. Testing them, here’s what I’ve found.  
 
·         Italicized sections apply to Nelson Rigg panniers only.
·         Non-italicized text means that section applies to all makes.  
 

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ASSEMBLING SOFT PANNIERS: NELSON RIGG ONLY
(FOR OTHER MAKES SKIP TO “MOUNTING YOUR PANNIERS”)
The Nelson Rigg instruction leaflet does tell half the story but experimentation revealed some things you may find useful.
 
When assembling the panniers the stiffeners appear too long. The instructions touch on this but do not adequately explain how to work around it.
 
The stiffener, once inserted through the loop, must be S-folded. Contrary to the first impression, the stiffener is flexible enough to allow this S-folding.
 

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MOUNTING YOUR PANNIERS
Setting off on your journey without testing your panniers is like setting off without noting the tank’s fuel level. You may make it…
 
Experimentation proved the wrong way to mount soft panniers is to set the straps while the panniers were empty. Doing so gave the impression there was a danger the panniers would float in the slipstream. This proved completely invalid when testing laden panniers.
 
Soft panniers must be filled before mounting them and setting the straps. Setting the straps for empty panniers, and then filling and remounting the panniers, resulted in the panniers riding too low. This was aggravated by the previously-noted impression the panniers must be lashed down at the base to prevent them from being lifted by the wind.
 
Once you have an idea of how high the laden panniers will ride, reset the straps to increase the ride height of the panniers (even if this makes it seem they are riding high when empty). The panniers must ride high to allow a decent distance between pannier and exhaust, remembering that when the motorcycle hits a bump, exhaust and pannier may touch.
 
Pay attention to what is underneath, i.e. inboard of, the pannier. Sharp or fragile items, such as licence disc holders, should be relocated or covered.
 
On most or all makes the major straps, being the ones that go over the saddle, are strong and versatile.
 
NELSON RIGG ONLY: The straps supplied to secure the front and rear walls of the pannier to mounting points on the motorcycle are not especially well thought out. They do have buckles to allow for length adjustment but, if set to less than the maximum length, the unused length will flap in the wind. Elastic bands or Velcro may remedy this, and adding strong tabs, secured with rivets, to increase the number of bungee-hook points the panniers offer would be a plus.
 

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PACKING AND BALANCING  
Common sense suggests each pannier should be weighted equally, but experience teaches this is not always so.
 
If your motorcycle has an exhaust on one side only, weight the pannier on the opposite side a little more heavily. For example, if the exhaust is on the right, weight the left pannier slightly more than the right. As the panniers settle, weighting them thus will cause the exhaust-side pannier to lift slightly, keeping it off the exhaust.
 
On a motorcycle that has an exhaust on each side, weight the panniers equally.
 

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PRACTICE
This may seem an odd point, but if you are touring in a group and other riders have hard panniers, the soft-pannier rider who holds the group up is painting a target on his back. Fiddling with straps when the group is waiting to depart won’t make you popular.
 
Before your trip, do yourself a favour; put in a half hour of practice in mounting and dismounting your panniers, and get the straps pre-set to the right length. Aim to secure the panniers onto, and remove them from, your motorcycle in under a minute.  For this purpose, fill the panniers with a load of clothing. Practise mounting and dismounting the panniers until it becomes akin to a military drill.
 
The one-minute rider is an asset to a touring group. The rider who continually delays departure due to fussing with straps is a liability.

I used soft panniers on one of the long rides  on my 06/1200 bandit and was very impressed with them.

They provide about the best centre of gravity and thus stability for the bike.

Mine were joined with velcro which laid across the pillion seat and my sleeping bag and small pack held it secure with a couple of occy straps.

I sewed a couple of layers of fire blanket to the underside of the right hand pannier after I discovered some scorch marks from the exhaust. Better late than never I guess.

I carried a 5 litre fuel can in the left side pannier for obvious reasons. This fuel I donated to a Harley rider who was on the same trip, as I was achieving over 300 Km before refuelling

I have a top box , which is fine for a couple of days away , and soft panniers for longer trips . Once set up , removal & refitting isn't a problem .............the only problem I found was if you take a pillion, the straps over the pillion seat can get uncomfortable even with padding over them .

I've used soft panniers for quite a few years. The only issue I've noticed is rubbing on the coloroed plastic pieces that they hang over. Some invisible paint protection film would address this issue.

Oops, I forgot about that.

Yes, I used vinyl wrap on all of my painted surfaces for the duration of the trip. Not good to leave it there permanently.

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