One Year Later: Cargo Options Revisited

Last summer I invested in various cargo options for my bike, based on my anticipated use for each. I've had a year of experience with these items now, so I thought I'd do a comparative evaluation. Here's my assessment from most used to least, though my riding has changed since I moved to DC so the list is likely to re-shuffle by next year:

Detours Ballard Market Pannier 
Because the predominant use of my bike for the first half-year was for commuting to work, my pannier became cargo option that I used most. I'll leave a full review to others, but suffice it to say it was an excellent bag for my needs: I could carry gym clothes and shoes, as well as lunch, the standard contents of a purse, and sometimes papers and a laptop without any issues. The side and front pockets were also handy, deep enough that I felt comfortable putting my wallet or keys in them, for easy access during my ride. The pannier was secure on my rack with all of these things inside, even as I went over some extremely bumpy terrain (there was a minor issue with the rack clip attachment, but there was an easy fix demonstrated on the website). The rubber bottom is another nice feature, great for when I would set my pannier down as I was locking up my bike--it would keep the bag upright, and protect the contents (and pannier itself) from the grime.  And after constant use for months on end, it still looks almost new.

Pannier on rear rack

These days I don't commute with my Globe so I don't commute with this pannier, and it's sadly underused. It would be a serviceable shopping bag, but I usually use my crate or basket, plus the pannier requires more careful loading of things into it compared to just using a regular grocery sack and sticking into a crate or rear basket. I still plan on keeping the pannier around though, and it does come in handy on occasion.

Milk Crate

This remains by go-to grocery shopping and general errand-running cargo option. It is the most secure, and gives me the most capacity. It requires a little more set up than the others, and is also a little more weight, but for serious shopping it's worth it. I've loaded the crate up and my ride remains stable. Also, I can leave it on my bike while I go into the store or wander around a market. As an added bonus, it increases by rear visibility considerably since I attached a huge swath of reflective tape to the crate, and a mounting bracket for my rear light.

Crate with reflective tape and rear light

I used to do one big loop and hit up all my stops, so by the end of my loop I need a cargo net to keep everything in the crate. After my move, I could break my trips into smaller segments and drop stuff off at home, so I don't always need to use this option, and try to alternate with the bottle basket. It's still preferred for the heavy duty grocery shopping though.

Basil Bottle Basket

Surprisingly, I used this basket the least of all my rear cargo options. It's well-made and beautiful, but for the way I was using my bike, its functionality was superseded by the milk crate. Post-move  I have smaller rides, and the things that used to be a hindrance now work to the bottle basket's advantage. For example, the farmers' market I go to now is a tiny neighborhood one, and when I know I'll be gone the next weekend, I don't buy as much. I can take this basket and drop it onto my rack, and either bring it around with me at the market or leave it on the bike since I'm never more than 25 feet away. I used to secure it with a bungee, but the arms are long enough that it's not really necessary, and the ride isn't that long anyway. I pair this basket with a Baggu shopping bag, which is roomy and has handles that I can tie up to prevent anything from jumping out.

Bottle basket on rear rack

Wald 137 Front Basket

I made this purchase in the early fall, because I thought it would be nice to have a light carrying option for when I wanted to use a bag that wasn't a pannier, but didn't want to take something as large as my crate or even my basket. I also thought it would be good to have the extra space to carry things home when my pannier was fully loaded (which it often was). However, for a while I was ambivalent about this basket, and went back and forth on leaving it as a fixture on my bike. For one thing it made the bike harder to carry down the stairs, which I did on an almost daily basis. For another, it interfered with my front light, although D (true to form) came up with a DIY solution that is not ideal but still pretty functional. I was also worried about it getting wet and rusting.

Now that I have secure bike parking in my building (also, there's no way I can keep my bike in my apartment) I've started keeping the basket on the bike. People sing the praises of Wald baskets, and I agree it's both well made and affordable. It's a fairly shallow basket so I've permanently attached a cargo net to the front so things don't go flying out. I use it as anticipated, plus it's been pretty handy to have in combination with the rear options, and its wide bottom is great when I want to keep something laying flat.

Milk crate and front basket

Anyway, it was helpful being able to choose between these different options as I was figuring out how I like to ride my bike. I've appreciated the flexibility even more post-move as my riding habits have shifted.

Cargo options for my bike!

Over the past few weeks, I've done a lot of research on different ways to carry things on my bike. The most obvious thing would be to just carry everything in a back pack, but I don't like having a bag on my back throwing off my balance, particularly when going to work involves a big hill with a narrow, bumpy road and a sharp-ish turn in it. Also, it makes my back sweaty. So, I've turned to other means:

Milk crate, pannier, bottle basket

Milk Crate
I've found the crate is a good general purpose mode of transporting things. It's very secure, and can carry a lot--more than any of my other options, actually. In addition, I don't have to worry about leaving the crate on the bike, whereas I'd have to carry the other options with me wherever I went. The main disadvantage is that because of where it's positioned, putting too many heavy things changes the center of gravity of the bike. So, my primary use for it has been for running quick errands. I can throw a purse and a sweater in there and go to the market to pick up a couple of odds and ends. It gets a bag of vegetables or a box of pastries home very nicely.

Pannier
I got this bag mainly so that I could carry my laptop and papers into work. I found that putting these things in my regular backpack in my crate made my bike more likely to "take off" (it's heavy high in the back, so the front wheels tend to lift off the ground a little). This bag is just big enough to hold my work things, and even gym clothes if I plan appropriately. It has a rubber bottom and a rain cover, to keep things dry in various conditions. An added handy feature is that the straps convert to back pack style. It's actually so compact, and I can hardly feel it on the bike even with my laptop and clothes in it--sometimes I look back just to see if it's still there!

Bottle Basket
Perhaps the least necessary of my cargo options, the ideal use for this basket is carrying tall, heavy things that I wouldn't feel comfortable transporting in my crate, e.g. cartons of milk or juice, other things that throw off my balance. I suppose I could carry some of these in my pannier, but this basket feels more secure: it has two arms that hook on to the rear rack, and I use a bungee as well since I travel some very bumpy roads. It's less fussy to get on and off, as there's no messing with clips and tucking away straps and flaps. It's also roomier than the pannier, which can't really take a full load of groceries. Of course, the real added value of this bottle basket is that I can hang it on one side of my rack while hanging my pannier on the other. So, if I wanted to load up on heavy and tall items as well as a regular load of groceries, I wouldn't be limited to choosing either my crate or my pannier.

One thing that might limit me is the 10kg max load on my rack; otherwise, I might attempt this:

Something I'd never actually do

How to attach a milk crate to your bike (nuts/bolts/washers method)

I cannot claim any credit for this, since my only role was insisting on having a system such that my crate is easily removable. The whole thing was engineered by D, who figured it out without even looking anything up--his do-it-yourself skills never cease to amaze me. I also found that if you wheel your bike into Lowe's and park it in the hardware aisle, nobody bats an eyelash.

So there are actually a few websites out there that describe different ways to attach a crate to the back of your bike (D may not have needed to research, but I did). The approaches I found (via Google), and why I rejected them:

1. Zip tie system - seems like the crate would be very secure, but not really a removable/re-attachable, my #1 criterion
2. Bungee sytem - in theory removable/re-attachable, but seems like a pain if you're not well practiced in bungee-ing things down; also, concerns that it's not as secure, and bungee may snap
3. Two metal plates, nuts and bolts - didn't actually see this until I started researching this post, and it's closest to D's system, but it's not removable/re-attachable 

Now, D figured that I should be able to take my crate on and off the bike without having to use any tools, and that the final product should be pretty secure. He came up with a system in which we attached bolts permanently to the bike rack (see order listed in picture caption). We were really lucky in that my bike came with a rack that had an aluminum plate attached, which had pre-drilled holes. The rack worked out really well for our system--D said it seemed like the rack was made to have a crate attached to it!

Bolts, flat washers, slit lock washers, hex nuts, and threadlocker

To attach the crate, you center the crate on the rack with the bolts threading through the holes in the bottom. Then you put a fender washer onto each bolt, and secure the washer with a wing nut. 

Fender washers and wing nuts

And there you have it! To remove it, you just undo the wing nuts and take the washers out. 

Attached crate

The crate is actually pretty secure with the washers and wing nuts alone, especially since we put three bolts in place. However, it still rattled around a little when I went for a ride, and I wanted just a little more security, so I also bungee it down. There's no complicated looping; the cords come in packs of two, so I just run one cord through the front of the crate, and the other cord through the back; the cords hook directly to the rack by the rear hub.

Optional but recommended: bungee cords

The bungee cords add some time to the attaching and removing process, but on the whole it's a quick and easy couple of minutes. I've ridden my bike through some bumpy roads, and it's very stable. I think it's a pretty nifty system, though admittedly having a rack like mine helps a lot. =)

Edited to add: Here's a diagram of the different components of the attachment system, BUT I forgot to draw in  a flat washer that goes between the rack and the bolt. Oops...

Drawn in Paper by Fifty Three, my favorite drawing app ever