Traverse Panniers Product Testing Adventures

In early 2026, I made a decision to overhaul the Trail Panniers and explore a better design and an improved mounting back plate. It was no easy decision, to admit that the product was not good enough and that my early supporters have a design that's 'not quite arrived yet'. 

Following the Tour Aotearoa posts on Facebook over summer, it was quite entertaining to read about all the jandals that fell off bikes, and the admin of the TA group even jokingly made up a new rule. I decided it was going to be my mission to help people secure jandals by the way of a clever pannier design.

A couple of young lads who bought Trail panniers did what young lads do to gear - they're actually the most honest kind of gear users because they push the limits and don't over think how they pack, as is often the case in the rush of bikepacking. George went for a training ride for the TA on Grade 4 MTB trails with his Trail Panniers with nothing but dive weights clanging around inside. Needless to say, it ended badly for his bike and misused the bags in a way unimaginable. 

On the other hand, Aidan had premature wear in the mounting panel of his panniers on the Queen Charlotte Track on Day 1 of the Sounds to Sounds, most likely from loosely strapping the bags to the rack, as it had survived the rest of the brevet after I told him to cable tie them to the rack. Neither users used their bags correctly, but it was a sign for the design to evolve so that it will survive more accidental misuse. 

I'm very appreciative of how kind they were about their feedback, so George became a bag tester for the Traverse Panniers, as well as a new friend, and Aidan has been promised replacement ones at no cost.

The Traverse panniers have taken me on a bikepacking adventure like none other. The warm up started with following George downhill on the Western Okaitaina Walkway while trying to watch the first prototypes and keep up with him without wiping out. There's a good reason for a first prototype and a test rider because there are always surprises the designer doesn't think of, like the ballooning pannier with a winter sleeping bag inside, without a fabric panel behind the stretch pocket! He also rode around Whakawerawera with dive weights again, with the second prototype, wrapped in clothes this time.

The next step was to turn myself into a panniers rider and warmed up to the idea of riding with a rack, ironically on a freezing Taupo weekend, packed fully loaded at Craters MTB Park and the Great Lake Trails. It wasn't until then, that I thought it wasn't so 'bad' afterall, since I've always bikepacked with a saddlebag and never quite understood what the hype was with panniers. 

The ultimate trip was our Central Plateau Winter Harden Up Mission, when I pulled together 3 of my mates including George, to set out on a wet day down the 42nd Traverse, carried our bikes over the slip that DOC never fixed, and crawled uphill to Ten Man Hut arriving after dark in the rain. I became the crash test dummy when I lost my front wheel and supermanned into a wheel rut full of grey sludge. The bike fell on the ULTRA Stretch pocket of one pannier, which showed no wear afterwards. George actually rode all the downhills and stream crossings on a gravel bike and put the bags through the rough stuff.

The rain didn't let up the next day, and we rode back the way we came down a gouged out 4WD track that seldom sees bikes, let alone bikepackers. Our bikes and bags were already covered in silt that got into everything. The puddles doubled in size and we instantly hiked our bikes when we left the hut; the dirtiness of its interior very much on par with us and the bikes, however grateful for a shelter and a fire. I was not impressed with pushing a loaded bike and hitting the panniers with every step, so that's one main learning from the trip, that even if the panniers survived such brutal trails, hiking them is the least enjoyable. 

From Owhango, we followed the Mountains to Sea route to papa mud country, down to Whakahoro for a night and a healthy dose of rough backcountry 4WD tracks then singletrack on the Kaiwhakauka the following day. That was were the pannier set up really shined, reaffirming the great time I had riding around Taupo's MTB trails, not noticing the load on the back of the bike and riding in tight spaces.

I carried a book in a pannier with some clothes - the verdict was that the seam taping was worrying because my book had an unexplained wet corner and I wore damp leggings that night at Whakahoro. George's bags stayed dry. 

The testing didn't end when we celebrated our hard-out 3 day winter mission in front of a fire at Jo's Ohakune bach. 

One of our NZ bikepacking stalwarts Bob Vaile and Rob Halliday set out on an 1800km Aussie Outback ride from Coober Pedy to Uluru during a wet season that the Outback hadn't seen in years. Between the two of them, there would've been about 12 pieces of Paper Roads gear, with Bob using the Traverse Panniers that had 2/3 size drybags which he used to store supplies for 5-6 days without food, and with 2L Platypus bladders wedged into the remaining space of the holster.

They didn't encounter rain, but a lot of sticky red mud and dust. Bob reported that there was a lot of washboard roads and the occasional champagne gravel section.

Bob was very happy with the set up overall. One ULTRA 400X drybag carried the supermarket top up, which meant all sorts of hard objects packed tightly into the unlined bag, then as the supply dwindled, the bag became packed less tightly. The jumble of tins and what-not would've been jostled thousands of times against the laminate interior over the vibrations.

I checked my EPLX400 Traverse pannier drybags closely and found signs of repeated abrasion on the outside of the bags against the inner back of the holster. I asked Bob about his, so he sent them up for inspection. 

I filled his bags with water, expecting water to squirt out of holes, seeing the crunched up laminate inside the bags. It fared better than I expected, and the ULTRA 400X showed little to no outer wear compared to the EPLX400. That's when I decided to change the inner holster back material to plastic, from a coarse fabric that would hold dirt and abrade.

These experiences hugely informed and directed the design process to the solution, every step of the way.

Both George and Bob pitched in with the idea of lashing the middle of the pannier to the rack, which did a lot to stabilise it on rough terrain. We experimented with the rear shockcord verses a webbing strap, across the Ortlieb Quickrack and the Old Man Mountain Divide racks. I myself was frustrated with the slipping straps (like Aidan's problem) while mounting the panniers to the Divide rack that had a solid platform and struggled to get my hand through. The triple reinforced mounting panel with doubled faced Cordura was a win for durability and rigidity. 

The only way that I could release the Traverse and the Trail panniers and also sleep at night, was to line them with a waterproof triple ripstop floating liner. It would be a second barrier against water, and protect the laminate of the outer bag. A lot of cottage bag makers (and even a major brand) don't even address the waterproofness problem, but to me, using a waterproof fabric but stitching needle holes in them is asking for the customer to spend money on good fabrics but get a leaky bag, when panniers are often used to store clothes (as opposed to Framebags). It's actually really hard to use several small drybags inside small panniers and pack it tightly. 

What everyone loved was the ULTRA Stretch front pockets and the G-hook closure. My Birkenstocks never moved inside, and they were handy for tuna tins as well as spare layers. The ease of removing the drybags was a tick for convenience compared to secure but hard to remove panniers that are velcroed to the rack.

A designer would evaluate a product at the end of the project and tick off the goals met that were laid out in the design brief and solve the problems stated. Out of the issues that the new design addresses, what I'm most excited to offer is a solution that saves hundreds of jandals from being abandoned all over the country.