Touratech Zega Panniers

Lisa and I looked into panniers long and hard as we'll be living out of them for several years.

There are several good makes including BMW's own, Hepco & Becker, Touratech and All Jesse's to name but a few.

Apart from the design and build of the panniers themselves, differences are also noticeable when you see how they attach to the bikes frame. Lisa and I used the BMW panniers for several years . They are strong and waterproof and served us well, however, for trips that are a little more demanding than European roads they need improving.

The BMW panniers are hinged at the bottom with locks on the top and bottom, so entry is from the side. Although the design is nice this does limit the usability of the pack space and makes packing awkward unless you use the optional BMW inner bags (more money). The 1100/1150 panniers are also angled front and back for improved aerodynamics. However, this feature again hinders the useable space for packing. The left panniers also has a large cutout for the exhaust which yet again means the space inside is restricted. The panniers are though, surprisingly strong. The panniers increase the rear end width to 98cm (wider than the handlebars and cylinder heads).  
Hepco & Becker also make good panniers but we felt they were a little "chunky". Click here to go to their website (its in German)  
All Jesse panniers look pretty good too, although quite expensive. The panniers are very well made with a good amount of attention to details. Lisa and I had a couple of concerns though. The Jesse panniers have been designed so that they hold 55 litres per pannier but don't exceed the width of your handlebars. That's a great Idea but that volume has to go somewhere. Because of this the panniers are tall and when attached to the bike the bottom of the pannier is almost sitting level with the middle of the back wheel. Lisa and I felt that when riding in very soft sand or badly rutted tracks, this depth of pannier, could ground, damaging the pannier and throwing the rider off. That said, I met Al Jesse in May 2002 and he told me he'd never heard of his panniers grounding. Click here for the Jesse website. or on the logo above.  
     

OK so here they are, our chosen panniers. Touratech Zega cases. We finally chose these for a number of reasons:

  • Tried and tested by other RTW travelers.
  • Aluminium construction, strong but lightweight.
  • Can be bash back into place following a fall
  • 4 point mounting system attaches the pannier to the frame
  • raised lip design stops water getting in from the top.
  • Integral inner bags very good (and not expensive)
  • Because there rectangles, they can be used as seats, a table or...other clever stuff that there not specifically design for, you get the idea
 

 

There are several pannier options (special, standard and street), Lisa and I went for what Touratech call there standard option. The special option has a large cutout in the left pannier, where the exhaust fits. This allows the left pannier to sit right over the top of the exhaust and therefore closer to the bike frame. We didn't go for this option as you lose 2 litres of volume. Also I have a Remus Exhaust system which wouldn't fit the cut -out, without a lot of modification. Click here for more details.

I have a 41 litre pannier on the left and a 35 litre on the right. This means the panniers are an equal width and look asymmetric to the eye. Even with the wider mount on the left, the panniers are still only 94cm wide, 4cm narrower than the BMW panniers.

Lisa's set up is slightly different, she has the standard set, but has chosen two 35 litre cases.

We've now used the Zega cases extensively and are delighted. They're completely waterproof, the inner bags work well and yes both bikes have been dropped without any real harm done to the panniers. In case your wondering, yes we have used them to sit on, I'm 6ft 4" and 15 1/2 stone, the pannier didn't collapse.

Instructions: pannier frame

The frames bolt directly onto the subframe.

1. Attach with the supplied bolts the left and right frame. Two bolts attach under the pillion seat(on the side of the bike), front and back and a third attaches to the pillion foot peg assembly. Make sure you only do the bolts up lightly, you need some free play in order to finish the job.

2. When both sides are loosely bolted on, attach the rear brace. This brace adds rigidity to the frame especially needed over rough terrain.

3. Tighten all the bolts up and you ready to go.

Instructions: pannier attachment

1. locate the two black plastic mounting lugs on to the pannier frame, then slide and push the pannier upright, to locate the two top tensioning lugs.

2. Move the metal holding bars into place against the pannier frame (this makes sense when you see the panniers).

3. With the lid off (because you cant do it otherwise) tighten the two large circular screws. These tension the system and hold the whole lot in place. Easy..

Made by: Touratech

Supplier: Bracken Motorcycles