Extreme weight weenieism. Lightweight bike + DIY panniers

<<<WARNING>>> Extremely long weight weenie post. Practically NO BIKE PORN WHATSOEVER. Just information. <<<WARNING>>>

I Posted about a month ago about putting together a lightweight touring bike/commuter/do it all bike. Here's some info on how I managed to save 5.1kg total from my bike and bike touring kit for £210.

My goal was to lighten my bike (1994 Marin Pine Mountain) and my bike touring kit. I’m currently planning a couple of bike tours and other escapades so cost was a big factor. Wanted the biggest weight saving for the least money spent.

The bike already had Deore LX all over (brakes, gears, hubs, cranks, cogs etc). Had some lightweight Ritchey rims - about 400g and 415g each.

The bike now weighs 10.15kg or 22lbs 6oz. I hope to get this down to 9.5kg (Just under 21lbs) soon by changing out the seatpost, bottom bracket, pedals, brake levers, brakes and gear shifters.

The table in the image shows the items I bought, how much they cost and how much they weigh. Also includes the weight of the item they replaced and finally the cost-gram saved ratio. This is a very useful thing to keep in mind as it prevents you from spending money on lovely, but unecessary stuff like titanium screws and carbon bottle cages etc.


*should be eBay spyder plastic saddle, not platic

Here’s an explanation for each of the items



Here’s a list of the weights of some of the lightest components I found and some rough prices.



Finally here’s a couple of photos of my DIY panniers. They weigh 425 grams each (395 without correx baseplate). A fiber flare goes on one of them nicely by attaching to the two black straps on the side






One of the bags on the bike while it's in 750W electric bike mode :twisted: (this photo was taken before many of the changes were made to the bike)


Rear view

The bags were made from ortlieb plastic pannier parts from some donor bags. I bought 2 Alpkit 20L dry bags and some correx (estate agent sign stuff) from a local framing wholesaler. Cut two rectangular pieces 28cm wide (used some maths to calculate this width would give the largest volume inside the bags). The height is up to you, but must be at least 5cm higher than where you want the upper pannier clip to be. Next, round off the corners of these pieces using some scissors. These pieces form the backing of each pannier and will have the pannier clips screwed through them.

Next, cut two oval pieces of correx the same shape as the bottom of the dry bag. These pieces will form a base for the bag.

Wrap all along the edges of the correx pieces with duct/duck tape to protect the inside of the bag from sharp edges.

Then it’s just a case of putting the backing inside the bag and screwing the ortlieb plastic parts onto the bag (screw through bag material and correx backing). Tighten everything up, pop in the base correx piece and there you go.

It helps if you fill the bag up with a pillow or sleeping bag when assembling everything. To strengthen the parts where the ortlieb parts screw into the bag, I would recommend some stormsure tuff tape, or some iron-on nylon patches to reinforce these areas.

Awesome !

I love the panniers. Tempted to cannibalise my crappy Ortlieb panniers. Excellent job.

greencat":27ne1yby said:

I love the panniers. Tempted to cannibalise my crappy Ortlieb panniers. Excellent job.

Click to expand...

Thanks very much! If you already have some ortliebs, then you've got nothing to lose .

One thing I didn't mention is that I got the parts from a pair of front panniers which have a smaller upper rail part (Same as Ortlieb spare part E170 I think). The rail from the more common 'back roller' bags use a rail that's about 32cm wide. If using the rail from these bags, you would need a larger dry bag for it to work. Probably the alpkit 35L size instead.

The same method would work for basically any donor bag so no need to use dry bags like I did. An old satchel type bag would work perfectly especially if your donor Ortlieb parts are from a wider 'back roller' bag. You could also mount the ortlieb parts so that the bag will be sit at a slight angle on the bike to help with any heel clearance issues.

To double check there would be no heel clearance issues, I taped a couple of sheets of paper to the inside of my chainstay triangle. Then I put on my cycling shoes and got a mate to mark on the paper at several points, the furthest my heel went back to on each pedal stroke. The resulting points on the paper were then used as a guide when deciding where exactly to fit the ortlieb parts onto the dry bag so that the bags would not cause any heel kicking when mounted.

Here are a couple more pics which show the shape of the correx pieces a bit better.


Here, the dry bag is peeled back a bit to show the correx backing with duck tape around the edges. You can also see the inner ortleib screws.


The oval base piece. Hard to tell from the photo, but I cut it so that one edge has less of a curve (the upper edge in the photo). This side goes in where the backing piece is.

Love it!