panniers! and man, are they yellow! (review-like thing)

yep. and not a moment too soon. i got home tonight to find an e-mail in my inbox notifying me that my new panniers had arrived at my favorite local outdoor store. i'd gotten home from work too late to go out for a ride anyway, so i high-tailed it over there and fetched them.

they're 'police line: do not cross'-yellow. i think i might like the color. it helps that they are luminous on the inside. 'cause of that it will be very easy to locate stuff in them, should i ever need to do that. since they're yellow, i expect they will reflect heat in the summer, so i might even be able to get my ice cream home from the store before it melts, on all but the very hottest days. if i ride really really fast. ooh. that sounds like exercise. and the shape seems fine for library books, or a couple of bottles of wine or a 6-pack of beer.

these are 'dry bags', so they close by folding the top openings over a couple of times (think: lunch bag), and anchoring the side 'ears'. i am not shy about riding in the rain, so this is a good thing. for a closure the designers spec'd the bags with half a side-release buckle on each of the side ears -- a male end on one; a female end on the other (bless their hearts!). so one may either lock them together on top of the bag; or lock the half-buckles into a strap that slides into a hook on the front, and doubles as a shoulder strap. it looks as if the deciding factor between the two closure methods might well be the fullness of the bag. the rack hooks clamp onto the rails on top of the rack. this may be normal to the rest of the world, but not to me, so i'm happy about this. the hooks release automatically when one pulls up on the bag handle. there is also a hook-like thing to keep the bottom of the bag stable, and which i haven't quite figured out yet.

a product review i read noted that the instructions are kind of hard to follow. i didn't find them so much hard to follow, as hard to understand. it's a series of drawings that are very clear and well-drawn, so it's easy to see what's what and how it goes together. but because there are no words, it's hard to know initially what function a couple of the little thingies serve, or how they will work in real life.

my only concern with these, is with how they will ride when empty; because they really weren't designed for that -- they were designed for travel. but a review i read stated that the bags are decent for shopping, and the manufacturer says so too. so it seems one can make them work. the manufacturer also makes a similar bag in a so-called 'shopping' version, but a pair of those would be significantly more expensive -- about $15 per bag more -- for a slightly different closure and shoulder strap configuration. not sure why there's so great a price difference on those. but it looks as if the expectation is that consumers will purchase only one of the 'shopping' version. i just happen to need room for milk, flour, cans of tomatoes, and buns, which i would rather not flatten on the way home. for that one needs volume.

can you tell that i get a ridiculous amount of joy from good design? the designers of these things thought hard about their intended use, and did a lovely job with them. i am quite giddy!

expect a follow-up on how these things work 'in the field' ~