I commute to work by bike and go riding offroad. Currently I use a Karrimor airspace bag for work and a Camelbak for off road. I'm looking at replacing them both with some form of bike mounted luggage. I've tried saddlebags before (cheap ones) and got very irritated by the rattling. I was looking at a seatpost mounted rack with a rack pack on it. This would be big enough as I never carry that much - usually waterproofs, tools & food. I tried putting everything into an Altura Dryline rack pack and I reckon it would fit so I think I need around 7 litres or thereabouts.

Ideally I want waterproof storage and I definitely don't want to faff around. If I have some bag mounted to the bike I want to be able to remove it rapidly without having to undo lots and lots of straps.

I looked at the Trek/Bontrager combination - the bag mounts quickly and doesn't rattle but isn't waterproof (so a liner would be needed). I also looked at the topeak method.

Has anyone actually used these sort of things offroad and if so how well do they perform do they rattle around still or can you stop that somehow?

Mike Davis wrote (see)

I'm mooting Camelbak for off-road, rack for commuting. Unless I've got confused and your commute is off-road too

I wish.

My plan was to get something that was suitable for offroad even if I didn't use it immediately - I like the idea of polaris type things or a bit of off road touring. I could always take both for off road...

Ah, sorry, wrong end of stick there, I thought you already had the Altura one.

I've used seatpost racks off road, they've varied a bit. Most successful has been a Blackburn quick-release one.

Given the amount you want to carry, i.e. not very much, I don't really see the need for on-bike storage. I'd keep it off the bike, personally.

I ran a seatpost rack and (Karrimor) racktop bag for a while on one bike - having that load high up on a less than rigid structure did some odd things to the bike handling, especially honking out of the saddle, and it's not a set-up I'd go back to.

Some ideas.

More ideas.

Thats interesting.

One thing I had already thought about was the use of a drybag/stuffsack type method. This would be attached to the rack somehow and could also be used whilst canoeing as a drybag. The problem with that was how to attach it to the rack. The commute is 2 miles which I do in different clothes to those I work in. The time taken getting changed and locking up etc is already close to the time taken actually riding. I don't want to take it further. I am willing to carry a bit more weight to speed things up - I'm still on mtb tyres as I haven't got round to buying some slicks so weight clearly isn't that much of an issue.

Has anyone ever used the bungee cord cargo net type things? I wondered about strapping a bag down using that.

(I was thinking of a drybag like this)

I was thinking that an Alpkit Stealthy Gourdon 20l with all the straps as short as possible etc could just sit on top of a rack. I'd then use a couple of q/r buckles and straps (like waist belts etc) to strap it down. This should be waterproof, rattle free (no excess space in drybag as it's rolled down first), sturdy and simple etc.

Any thoughts?

I have the Gourdon 20l it's a great bit of kit for the price, I use it when canoeing and hillwalking.

For my commute, the preferred option is one Ortlieb pannier, keeps everything dry and plenty of room for my considerably large lunch box which also keeps my clothes in place. It is also fine off road.

The Ortlieb pannier also doubles up as an extra dry bag when canoeing (open canoe).