Large and heavily loaded saddlebags do wag but not horribly so; and, at least on the right bikes, rear panniers affect handling very little even with rather heavy loads: I was amazed, at least on one of my Rivs, the first one, at how well I could corner (eg, tight S bends across narrow wooden bridges on bike paths) with a rear load in panniers on a Tubus rack, and how easy it was, with even 40 lb (I weighed the load) to ride at 10 mph with no hands (faster was even easier). My later and present Riv commuter does not handle rear loads nearly as well, even though, unladen, it handes better. And I've owned at least one bike (that Fuji) that handled better with a 30 lb rear load than unladen.
And it's not merely the stiffness of the frame. The Motobecane that I sold to Eric Norris was a very light 531 frame and a considerably lighter frame than that of the current Riv, yet it handled rear loads much better -- the rear *would* wag when I stood but only if the load was over 30 lb or so. I think that the cause is something about the frame geometry; and of course this all implies a stiff rack. *And* I never hand any problem with asymmetric loading -- I'd often carry 25 lb in just one rear pannier with no ill effect. I remember once carrying a 2' high stack of library books 10 miles, all stuffed into one very large rear pannier; this on an early Raleigh Technium that did waggle but not because of one-sided loading. On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Jan Heine <[email protected]> wrote: > On Nov 24, 4:17 am, Ken Freeman <[email protected]> wrote: > > My experience with seat bags is that they essentially do not affect > > handling in any way I can detect. > > Except when you rise out of the saddle. Then, the load is unsupported, > and tends to be the tail wagging the bike. But that applies to all > rear loads, including panniers. Rear low-riders perhaps have the least > effect in that situation, as they are so low that you don't move them > much as you move the bike from side to side. (But rear low-riders, > being so far back, have other issues that make them a good choice only > if you carefully balance your weight distribution when loading the > bike.) > > Jan Heine > Editor > Bicycle Quarterly > http://www.bikequarterly.com > > Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/ > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en. > > -- Patrick Moore Albuquerque, NM For professional resumes, contact Patrick Moore, ACRW http://resumespecialties.com/index.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
