My bicycle as the vehicle, my body as the engine

...how will I carry my gear?

At some point in time, everyone who heads out on a self-supported bike tour faces the question of whether to use panniers or a trailer - or both. And the same question is one that I've heard from a lot of folks planning to start touring. Actually, it tends to be a set of questions - what do you use? what do you recommend? why?

I've toured with panniers, and I've toured with a trailer, and I imagine I'll continue to choose based on the trip I'm about to take. I don't pretend to have all of the answers (does anyone?), but I'll attempt to present some reasons for each choice. Since this article is based on my touring experience, it includes information on on-road touring with a touring / road bike. I don't have any off-road touring experience, so I'll have to leave the off-road advice to someone else. Sign my guestbook to add your opinions and we should end up with a good set of information for the next new touring cyclist!

I started out in this wonderful world of traveling by bike by taking supported tours. There were two things that made me think a bit before moving into the self-supported touring world. One was my worry about fixing my bike (I didn't have a clue about how to do anything but change a tire, but that was something I worked to change before my first solo trip). And the second was the thought about hauling all of my gear. Now we're getting to the heart of this article...

Back in 1998 I contemplated (and took) my first solo trip. Traveling, relying on my own strength - both physical and mental - to get me and my gear from point to point, and to have fun too. I really didn't seriously consider using a trailer on my first trip. I was way too busy figuring out the bicycle and figuring out where to go - so I just fell into using panniers. It worked out fine, and I didn't even question my decision (or should I say my lack of a decision) until I started to meet cyclists on the road who were hauling trailers. I asked the folks with trailers how they liked them, and everyone I talked to was happy with their trailers. But the folks traveling with panniers were happy too. I didn't get any valid comparisons though, because I didn't meet anyone on that trip who had tried both options!

On that first solo trip, and on my trip the following year, the number of touring cyclists I met on the road who were using panniers still outnumbered those with trailers. I was trying to pay attention to this on my cross-country trip last summer, and I was surprised that it seemed there was an even split between panniers and trailers. I don't know why I was surprised, but I was.

The starting point? Questions!

The answers to these questions may help drive you to your decision on panniers vs. trailers (or not!).

• What type of bike do you have? Does it have braze-ons for racks?
  
  If not, a trailer is your best bet. (I know, you're right - there are some racks that attach to your seat post, but I don't think those racks can handle too much weight!)
  
  
• What type of trip are you taking? A "credit card tour" where you're carrying a minimum amount of gear? A fully loaded camping trip? Somewhere in between?
  
  The amount of stuff you need to carry for your trip can help make the decision. For a fully loaded camping trip, I'm much happier with a trailer because it pulls all of the weight off of the bike, and it doesn't change the feeling of your bicycle. If your bike is loaded down with the amount of gear you need (clothing, camping gear, etc.) stored in panniers, the handling / feeling of the bike is very different. But if you're planning a credit-card tour where you plan to carry minimal gear, then you should be able to fit everything in two partially full panniers, which won't have as big of an impact.
  
  If you're planning a credit card tour but you're dealing with a wide range of weather conditions, you still may need a lot of stuff. And if you're planning to camp and you expect flawless weather you might decide to go with something much lighter than your 3-season tent & sleeping bag, so you might be able to pack with much less weight & space.
  
  
• Are you doing a one-way trip where you have to transport all of your gear by some method other than biking?
  
  Sometimes in this case panniers will win out because you don't have an extra big thing to transport home or to the trip start - and you don't have to worry about excess baggage charges on an additional item. After all, you're probably already paying a fee for your bike!
  
  Of course, if you're traveling on a Bike Friday like I did last summer, the trailer still wins - because the trailer is really the bike case with wheels attached to it. I didn't have to worry about how to get the bike home because I could take my gear out of the trailer and throw it into a duffle bag, then fold up the bike and put it in the case / trailer. All ready to fly...
  
  
• Do you love the way a bike looks with panniers and hate the looks of trailers? Or the reverse?
  
  Handling concerns apart, aesthetics are important. If you absolutely hate the look of a bike with panniers, then use a trailer. And if you hate the look of a bike with a trailer, use panniers. I'd use this as a last resort for driving your decision though, because there really is a difference in the handling of the bicycle, and to me that is more important than how the bicycle looks.

Keep reading for more specifics...

Panniers: a compact choice

The big plus with panniers is that your bike is more compact. That is, it's the length you are accustomed to from your normal tooling around on bicycles. The big negative (to me, at least) is that riding fully loaded with panniers really changes the handling of your bicycle. It's something you can get used to, but it's definitely a factor. And yes, I was riding with front & rear panniers, plus I had my sleeping bag and tent strapped to the rear rack.

Plus, for some reason bicycles loaded with panniers like to fall over when you're no where near them. I'd pull up somewhere for a rest stop, lean my bike against a pole, a tree, whatever, walk away, and crash - I'd look back and it would be on the ground. OK, OK, I guess the bike was lonely, it wanted me to come back! I don't have a kickstand on my bike - maybe it would remain standing if I did... And I did get better at leaning by bike against immoveable objects as my trip progressed.

Another plus for panniers is that if you develop a packing plan you'll always be able to put your hand on exactly what you need whenever you're looking for something. Four panniers = four places to stash stuff. For example, I always had my raingear on the top of the rear right-side pannier. Stove, food, and fuel were in the front left pannier. Tubes and tools in the front right pannier. It's a nice built-in organization technique.

Another possible consideration - in some cases, the weight of the panniers plus racks is slightly less than the weight of a trailer + trailer bag. I don't really think this is a big enough difference though.

Other people I met on the road told me that they liked the trailer over panniers because they could easily detach the trailer from the bike when they wanted to wander around on an unload bike. That's true, it is easy, but it's also easy to pull the panniers off of your bike. My Ortlieb panniers were a cinch to remove from the bike too - just grap the strap/loop that opens the hook over the rack and it's off the bike. So I don't think ease of removal falls on either side of the panniers vs. trailer issue.



Good things about panniers:

• The bike is more compact.
  
• If you develop a packing strategy, you'll always know where everything is.
  

Bad things about panniers:

• If you're traveling fully loaded, bike handling is very different. The bike feels heavy, balance point is changed.
  
• If you're on a trip where you're using other transportation in addition to the bike, you don't have a way of carrying your bike case with you, so you'll have to either ship it on ahead or get a bike box at the end of your trip.
  

Front and rear

OK, you've decided to use panniers. The next choice is how many? For fully loaded touring, I think your best bet is 4. That way you can spread the load and have a bicycle that is easier to handle than one that has all of the weight in the rear. And - you can more easily isolate your clothing, tent, and sleeping bag from the odors of food and fuel. That's a pretty important consideration if you're traveling in bear country.

For credit card touring, you can probably get away with 2 panniers. My choice here is to use just the rear panniers. And in fact, I'd probably use my front panniers on the back because they are smaller. (If I felt I needed the space in my rear panniers, I'd probably be more likely to take my trailer.)

I did meet another cyclist on the road who was traveling fully loaded (camping, without carrying cooking gear) but with much less gear than I was using (I think I may need to take a lesson from him...) He had only two panniers, and he had them on a front low-rider rack. He said that he preferred the bike handling that way.

I can't verify the front only setup since I've never tried it myself. As with everything else here, the choice is yours!

Racks

If you decide to go with panniers, make sure to buy bombproof racks. When I walked into my local bike shop to buy my racks and panniers, I was given a strong recommendation to buy racks that were strong enough to support the load that I would be hauling. That seems pretty obvious - but you have to remember that there are a lot of racks out there that are inexpensive and can handle a light load but that will break under the pressure of a fully loaded tour.
The racks I chose for my fully loaded tours with panniers were from Bruce Gordon. These racks were made of chrome-moly with a minimalist but very strong design. Strong & light - that's what I like! I used a rear rack, and a low-riding front rack.

When I chose to use panniers to carry my food and fuel on a trip where my primary hauling mechanism was a trailer, I used a folding rack (folding bike, folding rack - I think there's a theme here!) from Bike Friday. Again, a chrome-moly rack, with a sweet design that accommodates folding to pack with the folding bike at the end of the trip.

There are other good racks out there too - just make sure that the racks you choose are rated for the load you intend to carry. When I met Mickey (a Transam rider) in Missoula on my first trip, he was on his 3rd rack. His rack kept breaking, and luckily the manufacturer always replaced the broken rack for free. That's great in that he had no additional cash outlay - but you can't guarantee that you'll be anywhere near a source for a new rack when your rack breaks. It's much better to start your trip with a rack that will hold together under a full load.

And remember, on some of your tours you're likely to be passing through some pretty empty areas. I've been on trips where I was days away from a bike shop (and the little ones in the middle of no where aren't likely to have the kind of racks that you need), and in places where overnight deliveries take at least two days.

Trailers: What's that behind me?

I really like traveling with a trailer. The bike handling feels more like an unloaded bicycle. It doesn't have the same loaded feeling as when you carry the same amount of gear on the bike in panniers. There were times when I was riding along on the flats when I actually had to look behind me to make sure that the trailer was still there.

You definitely know there's something behind you as you're getting rolling from a dead stop, and you do feel a drag as you're heading up a long hill - but both of those things happen with panniers too. It's just the nature of hauling your own gear.

It can be hard to get through doors (like when you're checking in to a hotel) with the bike plus trailer. But hey - just unhook the trailer if you're trying to manipulate through a door or around a really sharp corner. Those types of problems never happened when I was riding.

A trailer can be a massive place to just dump your stuff, so how do you find what you need? I use Eagle Creek Pack-It cubes to organize my gear in my trailer. Regular stuff sacks would work well too. So even though everything is in a single undivided compartment, I can easily put my hands on whatever it is that I need.

Because my trip with a trailer was done on a Bike Friday folding bike, I used a 2-wheeled trailer. My bike case is a hard-sided suitcase that converts to a trailer, so I had no choice on whether to use a 1-wheeled vs. 2-wheeled trailer. There were a few times where I think a single-wheeled trailer like a Bob Yak would have been better, but overall my 2-wheeled trailer worked quite well. (The one or two days on my cross-country trip where I was wishing for a single-wheeled trailer were the days when there wasn't enough room to the right of the rumble strip to accommodate my trailer. On those days my choices were to ride on the shoulder with the trailer wheel bumping along the rumble strip, or to ride in the driving lane. If I'd been hauling a Bob it wouldn't have hit the rumble strip. I found the rumble strip pretty annoying, so I just rode in the driving lane and moved out of the way when needed.)

Again on my cross-country trip, I made the decision to use panniers in addition to the trailer. The reason I did this was to be able to isolate any food and fuel odors from my clothes, tent, and sleeping bag. I was originally only going to take a single pannier, but one of my friends convinced me that I didn't need to ride a lopsided bike for the entire summer. I used my (smaller) front panniers on the rear, and I only filled them half-way. Not too much weight on the bike, so not too much change in handling characteristics. I met someone riding the Northern Tier who solved the fuel problem in a much more clever way. He had attached four water bottle cages to his Bob trailer, and he was using them to carry 2 extra bottles of water and 2 fuel bottles.

One more consideration - now you need spare tubes and tires for the trailer too. And the trailer tires are definitely a different size than your bicycle tires! I carried 2 spare tubes for the trailer (one would probably have been sufficient) and one extra tire (which I didn't need). The trailer tubes have Schrader values, and my bicycle tubes have Presta valves (I really do prefer them...), so I had to deal with the pump issue. But that really wasn't a problem since my frame pump can easily switch between the two types of valves. Needing to carry an extra tube or tire just isn't enough to push me away from using a trailer.

Here are a few sources for trailers. And yes, there are many more trailer manufacturers out there. These are the trailers that I've used (Bike Friday) or trailers that have have been recommended by others.

• Bike Friday suitcase trailer for use with their folding bikes
• Bob Yak or Ibex single-wheeled trailers. This was the trailer I saw most often during my cycling journeys.
• Burley Nomad double-wheeled trailer.
• CycleTote double-wheeled trailer.

Me, my Bike Friday, and the trailer - in front of the Grand Tetons. What - panniers too?!


The trailer as a drying rack...


A (somewhat) close-up shot of the trailer connection to the bike - unlike most of the trailers out there, this one hooks to a braze-on on the frame with a handy-dandy air fitting. A clamp-on hitch is also available.


Good things about trailers:

• The handling of the bicycle is much better. It feels like a "normal" bike. This is the major driving point to my choice of using a trailer!
  
• If you develop a packing strategy, you'll still always know where everything is.
  
• If your trailer is your bike case you won't need to figure out how to transport your bike to or from your trip.
  
• My trailer made a great drying rack for the clothes I washed out at night that still weren't dry the next morning.

Bad things about trailers:

• The bike and trailer combination is much longer than you're used to, so it may be difficult to get into buildings. But wait - this is silly - just unhook the trailer!
  
• On a trip where you have to deal with transportation other than the bike, you'll have another big thing to ship. Unless you're riding a Bike Friday, in which case this turns into a good point since the trailer is the bike case!
  

My buddies on the tandem started out with panniers only. They'd toured that way before, but this time they had so much gear that they were having trouble controlling the bike. They purchased a trailer on the second day of their trip so they could get some of the weight off of the bike. They moved much of their heavy gear into the trailer, plus they were using 4 panniers (in their tent at the time of this photo).

Handlebar bag or just a map case?

Many people like handlebar bags for easy access to snacks & a camera, and for a handy place to stash a map so that it is easily visible while riding. I don't like the way a handlebar bag changes the feel of my bicycle, so I don't use one. (But wait you say, what about the front panniers? They do the same thing, don't they? True, and that's why I prefer to ride with a trailer!)

I prefer to use just a map case. I bought a map case from Adventure Cycling. It attaches to the handle bars with velcro, and it works quite well for Adventure Cycling maps or for cue sheets. I usually stash my camera in a very small fanny pack, so that solves that problem. And what about snacks? I usually stash those in my jersey pocket or in a pocket of my Camelbak.