It’s 2023 and I’ve got new luggage on my VSTROM. Last year I was using SW Motech hard-paniers, which I loved because I could pack them efficiently and they were so easy to put on the bike and take them off again – but I’ve now gone soft…. I’ve sold those panniers and bought some Desert Fox ‘Sahara’ saddle bags. The bags are made in South Africa and I am really impressed with them as they seem very hard-wearing and adaptable.
The bags come complete with inner dry-bags plus two cable-locks for locking the bags to the bike. Each bag also has two pockets, which are really big and deep. The inners are really high quality. Almost industrial quality, but I found it hard work to let the bags into and out of the outer bags, so I’ve stopped using them and I’ve bought some dry-bags from LOMO.co.uk. They’re made from a thin nylon waterproof material and with experimentation, I find that I can get almost 40 litres into each saddle bag. With the original inners, I found that I was only managing about 30 litres due to the hard material of the inner bags..
So why have I changed over to soft panniers…? Well later in the year I am planning to make a big trip, hopefully to Morocco and all the way down to The Gambia or even further – and for that I need to use soft panniers. My biggest concern is when I drop the bike, because I just know I’m going to drop it several times, and I really didn’t want to run the risk of dropping the bike with hard panniers as they are bound to get damaged. Also, last year I did ‘nip’ my ankle a few times with the hard panniers so I thought I would make the change.
The panniers just throw over my seat and I use a single bungee strap on each bag to secure it to the pannier rack. I’ve still got my SW Motech racks, and the ‘Sahara’s’ fit nicely onto the racks. The only other change I’ve had to make was a new silencer, as the stock one was really too big and the right hand bag lay against the silencer. Because I didnt want to run the risk of the silencer burning a hole through the bag, I fitted a smaller ‘Fuel’ silencer, which is really quite nice. I also fitted an additional bracket to make the silencer hang lower, which sits snugly below the bag now.
Anyway, I was recently travelling through Argyll in Scotland, and took the opportunity to record some video to show you my new changes in luggage. Enjoy…!