Q45 at 1000km, +/- some parts

[Bent not broken!]

Added another set of minimalist pannier racks slightly higher up and behind the seat. Can get 4 full-sized bags on the bike now. Upside is that the seat now sits at ~25° fully loaded and the bottom bracket is well above the seat pan, which seems to improve my leverage on the pedals. Downside is that this has confirmed my suspicion that something up front (chainring? boom?) is flexing under heavy pedaling forces. Also have to be careful not to bottom out the shock when mashing up steep inclines with a lot of weight in the bags.
View attachment 8507

How are the panniers attached at the bottom?

 

[burando]

Each pannier bag's bottom hook goes around a small vertical aluminum bar that I pinned to the shock-adjacent braze-on on the rear wheel swing-arm. A 10cm (~4in) bar is plenty to accommodate swing-travel and keep the bag from rubbing against the frame. The bags have been rock-solid for ~40K km (~25K miles) and hundreds of grocery runs.

 

[Paruig]

small vertical aluminum bar that I pinned to the shock-adjacent braze-on on the rear wheel swing-arm

Do you have a photo of the small vertical aluminum bar that you pinned to the shock-adjacent braze-on on the rear wheel swing-arm?