Home-made pannier

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

annedonnelly

Girl from the North Country
Has anyone tried to make their own pannier to clip onto a rack?

I have a pair of panniers which are great for shopping & general riding. At the supermarket the panniers go into the trolley and I pack straight into them. If I'm shopping in town I leave the panniers on the bike locked up and put shopping in when I get back.

But sometimes it would be nice to have a bag that I could carry with me that looks like a proper bag rather than a pannier and is easy to carry. I see that there are lots of expensive ones that would do. But I don't want to spend that much money for something that I won't need often.

With a bit of googling I see that you can buy replacement hooks for various makes of pannier, e.g. these. So I wonder if it would be possible to take an ordinary bag and fix the pannier hooks somehow. I suppose it depends how the hooks are designed to fix into the bag.
 

Pat "5mph"

A kilogrammicaly challenged woman
Moderator
Location
Glasgow
Hi Anne, have a look at this.
There was another brilliant thread about someone making panniers out of an old leather chair, they looked lovely, but I can't find it anymore.
 
OP
OP
annedonnelly

annedonnelly

Girl from the North Country
Thanks Pat. That's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. I'm going to look for a suitable bag in a charity shop and see what I can do.

I don't think I can make the bag from scratch tho :smile: I did have a lesson from a proper leather worker once - it all seemed so easy but all I've done since is make half a belt - the half without a buckle!!
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
If a bag has a shoulder strap, you can carabiner the hoops where the straps fix to the bag onto saddlebag loops or the side rails of a rack, but you need to take care to open the carabiner fully or put rubber tape over the rail, else it'll damage the finish.
 

PpPete

Legendary Member
Location
Chandler's Ford
Many many years my SO of the time worked at a place where they serviced marine life rafts - and as a result could get off-cuts of a heavy rubberised fabric. We did make panniers out of it, but TBH it was a bit of a faff.
 
Top Bottom