low drag said:
I don't know how to say this again, but there is no muck, dirt or other substance to remove here in 95% of the instances I ride in.
Anyway, back to the original topic. It seems many folks have had trouble with hard cases.
What I'm not sure about is it due to the 90 degree corners on most boxes or is it just the hard case? I can go with soft bags but will lose some storage space.
The answer is that it is whichever can place and hold (even for just a moment) a load on the back of your leg, which is not the situation that the BMW rider is in when the photo was taken. (It is amazing how far joints can move before bones break!)
If the soft bags have tools and cans of beans at the bottom then they probably are not much better than the hard boxes of identical shape. The South African I mentioned (Peter) had Wolfman soft luggage with his heavy hard stuff at the bottom and said the bags were pretty rigid. But common sense is that rounded edges are more likely for you to slide out like in the BMW photo and softer materials can distribute loads better.
After a long talk about it with the South African rider and then a lot of research (hey checking wrecks is me
), the injury pattern when panniers are involved is very repetitive. First, lower extremity injuries are a large portion of injuries categorized as worst in an accident, so lower leg injuries are more likely to keep me from being able to continue riding. Riding is one of my passions so I'm interested in minimizing my risk.
Association For The Advancement Of Automotive Medicine
On to pannier involvement and here is how Ted Simon wrote about his fall in Hubb:
[quote author=tedsimon]
...Hello everyone, from the comfort of an armchair in Lorraine's convalescent home where we have an excellent view of giraffe and occasional visits from baboons. Yesterday was my birthday, and we made the most of the occasion...
However,
what broke was the fibula at last I know what that is? and it's not so serious. The professor screwed a bloody great plate across the break, and I plan to be back on the bike by the end of the month. If Barry Sheene can do it, so can I...
What happened? Well, it was supposed to be dry, and it rained. The first part of the road south of Moyale is dirt, which translates into mud. Me, my bike and my tyres were simply not at their best in these conditions. I fell over a couple of times before the break, but that was just inconvenient. The main problem, it seems to me, is that the boxes are just a bit too long and come too far forward. I defy anyone not to put a leg down when the bike is obviously going over, and the
mud dragged my foot back under the box. Even so, it was an unlucky fall. I still remember the crack ? first time in my life I've heard it ? and the rest is history which you will read about in full detail on my web site as soon as we catch up...
Thank you all for keeping confidence in me. Ted Simon
[/quote]
What was eye-catching was that Ted, Peter, and others reported breaking the fibula in pannier-related injuries. While most also break the tibia, as somebody who pays attention to crash results it was very conspicuous that fibulas alone are being broken, and the number of reports describing less damage to the bigger stronger shin bone (tibia). To show how unusual this is and why it was eye-catching, note the lack of a line for fractures of only fibulas in motorcycle accidents:
(World Health Org study, based in Pakistan data after removing head injuries.)
.
In other words, the pannier-involved accidents seem to be breaking the thinner rear long bone in the lower leg, as opposed to an impact which typically breaks both or just the thicker shin bone (tibia). It was South African Peter who got me to researching after we talked because I'd caught my own boot a couple of times and he said the doctor was surprised that his fracture was from the rear, forward. I knew that was odd, spoke with a PhD in impact kinetics (how people break), an ER doc, and did a bunch of research. The chart above is only from a magazine article but it visualizes what the other sources convey, in that fibula fractures are unusual for a motorcycle impact, which typically comes from the front. The other clue was that both Peter and OzRob said that they could walk right after, since the tibia is the weight bearing bone in the lower leg.
.
At this point and since it related to my own health and my bank account, the result is that I'm fairly confidant that the OP and all of those ADV posts about this subject aren't just smoke or "I think" conjecture and I've changed my behavior. While I'm keeping my big aluminum boxes for road trips, I bought a set of soft bags for times when I won't need as much space as the hard boxes on road trips, or if I anticipate going off of pavement.