since you asked, Charles
These panniers are smallish bags intended to carry water, food, extra clothing, tools etc. for long rides. I'm using them now to work out the bugs and because I don't have any better way to carry my water. Maybe a quiver/Munster boot rig would work.
I got a lot of my ideas from the Radical bags. But this is a one-off for my own use. No commerical intent. I like the Radical Racer/Banana Racer panniers, but they're bigger than need for carrying my water bladder. The Radical Solo Racer might work for the Silvio but is too small for my purposes. The bags are 20" long, 6" tall at the front. 8" tall at the rear. The top is 2" wide. The bottom is 3" wide. The rear face hangs vertical on a 27 degree seat, or would if I filled the bags.
I may make a larger set of bags later.
1- bags mounted on the bike. The red flap is intended to keep rain out of the zipper. And it adds a nice splash of color. The strap holds the rain flap down, and can be used to hold the bag rolled up, if at some point I don't want the bag hanging. The pocket on the side just below the flap (oops) is sized to fit my phone. It's secure, but I'd rather the flap covered it better.
Note the seatstay mounted rear light.
alt="bag closed"
alt="bag unbuckled"
Here's the bag open. That loop is is a continuation of the strap over the seat and is positioned to allow me to hang the camelbak from the top of the bag. It's not sitting horizontal on the bottom of the pannier.The hose exits the top of the pannier through the standard overlapping flaps. The right bag is a mirror image of the left.
alt="bag open"
There are 3 cross straps supporting the pannier.The lower is 9" long to hang the bags just below the seat at the narrow spot. The middle is 11" long to hang the bag just below the wide port (seat is 7" and 9" wide at these locations). These straps are not adjustable. This is fitted to the Silvio seat, not a generic bag. The third strap goes across the head rest tubes below the seat. That one is adjustable. There's a strap running over the top of the seat connecting the middle and upper straps to allow me to adjust how high the bags hang on the seat. This is also an imitation of the Radical design.
The lower strap attaches to the inner edge of the top of the bag. The middle strap attaches to the outer edge of the top of the bag. This is supposed to make the whole rig taper toward the rear. Might even work.
alt="straps on seat"
alt="straps"
And here's a view from the back. Poor quality picture because it's shot using ambient light in my garage at night. Those big reflective panels really glow in a flash photo. With luck they'll work the same way with headlights. There is a piece of aluminum bent into a U shape and clamped to the head rest tubes. This is supposed to keep the bags off the rear wheel and does it's job. But I need to come up with a better solution. Maybe bungie cord between the headrest and seatstays. Further experimenting is necessary.
Looks like I forgot to take the taillight off the headrest when I put the new one on the rear disk brake mount.
alt="rear view"
Probably the most difficult part of this job was planning the assembly process. If I did things in the wrong order, it would make later steps very difficult.
The black fabric 840 denier coated "junior" ballistic nylon. The red fabric is 400ish denier coated nylon that I had lying around from some past project.
My materials for this job came from www.seattlefabrics.com (fabric, straps, zippers, buckles, reflective tape) They're a great 1-stop-shop for synthetic materials. This cost about $40 in materials/shipping and a cold, windy Saturday.
No duck or duct tape went into this project.
