A look at my new panniers

Hey friends, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I just got a new set of custom panniers from Curtis at North St. Bags. In exchange for drawerings, he has built me a set of Avenue Bs. The Avenue B is a convertible bag that goes from pannier to backpack. To have a matching set, one of the bags is simply a pannier, the first time Curtis built the bag as pannier-only.

Enough talk! Some photos!

Also works as front panniers on the Long Haul Trucker!

And on the Raleigh. There's enough clearance so heel strike is rare.

And some detail!

This is the convertible pannier, which is designed for non-drive side use.  So on the "rear" or right side is a pouch for a water bottle and compression straps.

The left or "front" side. Two smaller pouches and more compression straps.

The back side in pannier mode. It uses simple hooks and bungees. The hooks are big enough to fit on my Dutch rear rack on the Raleigh.

The interior with organizer pouch.

And how does it convert?

The bungee and hook is unfastened and is stowed in this clever velcro loop!

The "back" is unzipped, revealing the backpack straps.

The straps are pulled out. Note the velcro patches on the flap and on the body.

The flap is then velcroed to the body.

Me rocking backpack with "Nouveau Cascadian Outdoorsy Look (that doesn't happen to use Columbia Sportswear.)"

As for the how the bags work, so far so good! Hopefully these things will come through on the road. Most likely I'll use the Avenue Bs as front bags, as the Route 7 panniers are a bit bigger.