Ortlieb happiness

SuzieB said:

Finally got myself some Ortlieb Back Roller Classic panniers in blue of course - ortliebusa.comprodInfo.aspOpen ↗ and I am going to ride to work on Friday. It's not that the distance is challenging, it's just been getting my head around organising myself. The panniers are going to make that easy. I am very excited - it's EuanB's turn to be bored by bicycle talk. 🙂

Had mine for about 6mths now. i use one and daughter uses one too.
Pricey but really worth it, as i use em daily.
The attachment mech is very easy; almost too easy. Made me circumspect when i first got em. Taking em off is dang easy too. but dont come off unless you want them to. The shoulder strap is wicked. Use em at shops, market, hanging em up at home all the time

Bit of a tip. They are VERY waterproof. That also means they hold in any 'odours' etc which can get rather ripe after a while. I got half a dozen of those lil' silica gel satchet thingie sform the local shoe shop and leave em in the bottom.
Also ensure positioning of lower hooky-thing™ is suited perfectly to your rack uprights and as far back to give you lots of heel clearance (not sure if women-specific frames are more prone to this or not)
ENJOY.
PS wrestling your second one from a family member in times of need can be dangerous 😄

SuzieB said:

Finally got myself some Ortlieb Back Roller Classic panniers in blue of course ... and I am going to ride to work on Friday.

What time do you plan to arrive at work? I may pass you while travelling the other direction.

flyingdutch said:

SuzieB said:

Finally got myself some Ortlieb Back Roller Classic panniers in blue of
course - http://www.ortliebusa.com/cartgenie/prodInfo.asp?pid=31&cid=2
and I am going to ride to work on Friday. It's not that the distance is
challenging, it's just been getting my head around organising myself.
The panniers are going to make that easy. I am very excited - it's
EuanB's turn to be bored by bicycle talk. 🙂

Had mine for about 6mths now. i use one and daughter uses one too.
Pricey but really worth it, as i use em daily.

I'll second that motion. Ortliebs are the king of panniers -- fantastic,
can't say enough nice words about them.

Quoted message said:

Bit of a tip. They are VERY waterproof. That also means they hold in
any 'odours' etc which can get rather ripe after a while. I got half a
dozen of those lil' silica gel satchet thingie sform the local shoe
shop and leave em in the bottom.

Word of warning: silica gel will, over time, become saturated with water
and hence useless. You can take it out of the little paper packets to
dry it out ... but then you have the problem of how to keep it from
running all over the place next time you open the panniers. Probably
easier to source new packets every six to twelve months.

Quoted message said:

PS wrestling your second one from a family member in times of need can
be dangerous 😄

This is why you have two or three sets, right? 😄

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Stuart Lamble said:

Word of warning: silica gel will, over time, become saturated with water
and hence useless. You can take it out of the little paper packets to
dry it out ... but then you have the problem of how to keep it from
running all over the place next time you open the panniers.

There's no need to take the stuff out of the little packets to dry it. I just chuck the whole packets in the oven on it's lowest setting for an hour or so, and that pulls any moisture out of them quite nicely.

I've got an Ortlieb office pannier (the boxy one), which often smells like my old schoolbag on PE days.

Cheers,

Suzy

SuzieB said:

Finally got myself some Ortlieb Back Roller Classic panniers in blue of course - ortliebusa.comprodInfo.aspOpen ↗ and I am going to ride to work on Friday. It's not that the distance is challenging, it's just been getting my head around organising myself. The panniers are going to make that easy. I am very excited - it's EuanB's turn to be bored by bicycle talk. 🙂

We have the complete set of Ortleibs in red which we use for touring, commuting and shopping. Here's a pic of the tandem loaded. It's so good not having to worry about the rain.

If they start to smell just wash them out with something mild and dry them well.

Happy commuting

Cheers

Geoff

suzyj said:

Quoted message said:

Word of warning: silica gel will, over time, become saturated with
water and hence useless. You can take it out of the little paper
packets to dry it out ... but then you have the problem of how to
keep it from running all over the place next time you open the
panniers.

There's no need to take the stuff out of the little packets to dry it.
I just chuck the whole packets in the oven on it's lowest setting for an
hour or so, and that pulls any moisture out of them quite nicely.

Interesting ... most of the sites I've looked at regarding drying them
out are advocating temperatures of 275 degrees Fahrenheit ... *clickety
click* that's 135 degrees Celcius. Would have expected those sorts of
temperatures to cause the paper to burn.

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the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@ to usenet".

Stuart Lamble said:

Interesting ... most of the sites I've looked at regarding drying them
out are advocating temperatures of 275 degrees Fahrenheit ... *clickety
click* that's 135 degrees Celcius. Would have expected those sorts of
temperatures to cause the paper to burn.

The lowest my oven goes is 100 degrees. The paper doesn't burn at that temperature. Google tells me the ignition temp of paper is around 230 degrees (451 degrees farenheit, interestingly enough).

I occasionally bake stuff (girlie alert!) at 180 degrees, in greasproof paper (which is probably treated with different stuff to the little saches of silica gel), and the paper doesn't generally burn (tho it does go a little brown).

Cheers,

Suzy

Further info:

From http://www.geejaychemicals.co.uk/faq.htm:

Quoted message said:

Self-indicating silica gels when they have become saturated can
be regenerated by heating at 100 - 120°C until they return to their
original colours. The heating literally drives off the adsorbed moisture.
Regeneration can be carried out repeatedly, although eventually the
crystals will lose their colour. When regenerating self-indicating silica
gel sachets, only the minimum necessary heat should be used. This
will prevent the sachet material from deteriorating.

Cheers,

Suzy

suzyj said:

Further info:

From http://www.geejaychemicals.co.uk/faq.htm:

Quoted message said:

Self-indicating silica gels when they have become saturated can
be regenerated by heating at 100 - 120°C until they return to their
original colours. The heating literally drives off the adsorbed moisture.
Regeneration can be carried out repeatedly, although eventually the
crystals will lose their colour. When regenerating self-indicating silica
gel sachets, only the minimum necessary heat should be used. This
will prevent the sachet material from deteriorating.

Cheers,

Suzy

Typically we dry it at 105 degrees in our oven in the lab with no dramas. However I recall an OHS alert fairly recently about the Blue-self indicating type and chemicals detrimental to health, I think it may have been placed on notice in the UK but as yet it hasn't come through as an issue in Australia.

I think the issue is about the dyes used in the blue kind so I would steer clear of it in a domestic oven

- as it happens SuzyJ and I have the same employer, although in quite different fields

RoryW

Rory Williams said:

Typically we dry it at 105 degrees in our oven in the lab with no dramas. However I recall an OHS alert fairly recently about the Blue-self indicating type and chemicals detrimental to health, I think it may have been placed on notice in the UK but as yet it hasn't come through as an issue in Australia.

I think the issue is about the dyes used in the blue kind so I would steer clear of it in a domestic oven

- as it happens SuzyJ and I have the same employer, although in quite different fields

RoryW

Quick check via google

Cobalt II Chloride (the dye) may be considered a potential carcinogen in Humans - see excerpt from ANU OHS page

info.anu.edu.auSelf Indicating Blue Silica Gel.aspOpen ↗[/URL]

I would look for the non-indicating kind for use at home

RoryW

Stuart Lamble said:

Interesting ... most of the sites I've looked at regarding drying them out
are advocating temperatures of 275 degrees Fahrenheit ... *clickety click*
that's 135 degrees Celcius. Would have expected those sorts of
temperatures to cause the paper to burn.

I'm disappointed. Surely you're aware that paper ignites at 451
Fahrenheit?

(And I'm wondering why Suzy J still has PE days).

--
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"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
- Matt Groening

On 2006-01-03, suzyj (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Stuart Lamble said:

Word of warning: silica gel will, over time, become saturated with

water

Quoted message said:

and hence useless. You can take it out of the little paper packets

to

Quoted message said:

dry it out ... but then you have the problem of how to keep it from
running all over the place next time you open the panniers.

There's no need to take the stuff out of the little packets to dry it.
I just chuck the whole packets in the oven on it's lowest setting for an
hour or so, and that pulls any moisture out of them quite nicely.

I've got an Ortlieb office pannier (the boxy one), which often smells
like my old schoolbag on PE days.

My waterproof... um... no idea what brand they are, but pricey enough,
used to smell like tuna. Gosh, that was pretty stinky at times.
Definitely made worse when the occasional lunch actually leaked into
the pannier.

Not anymore -- I buy my lunch now that I don't have any money left.

--
TimC
"I often hear people claim they perform skills better slightly drunk if
they learned that skill drunk. I wonder if that applies to Perl. Get good
and liquored up, dash off a few scripts, see how you like it." -Rob Chanter

Random Data said:

(And I'm wondering why Suzy J still has PE days).

Naah - just a well imprinted scent memory. The smell of the schoolbag after your PE sweaty gear's been left in it for a fortnight is powerful stuff.

Hmmm... High-school PE... 1km "fun r*ns", cricket (one of our PE teachers was the f%$^ing captain of the ACT cricket team, so we did *lots* of cricket), busting collarbone running into netball hoop...

Oh, and hockey. I lurved hockey. I was always bigger, meaner, uglier, and much more violent than all the others in my class 🙂

Or it may just be halucinations caused by sniffing too much cobalt chloride...

Cheers,

Suzy

suzyj said:

Naah - just a well imprinted scent memory. The smell of the schoolbag
after your PE sweaty gear's been left in it for a fortnight is powerful
stuff.

Thanks for that, you've just brought back an extremely unpleasant olfactory
memory (though thankfully one that has dimmed with the years). Imagine
this, one bunch of smelly kayakers touring Germany and Austria. Even when
washed, a thermal top (a.k.a. "Smelly Helly"😉 used in such situations can
develop an eco-system that would give biologists nightmares. Now imagine
the kayak trailer breaking, being left full of gear (including damp
thermals packed in sealed dry bags) to bake in the hot Bavarian sun for a
month or so before being returned to the UK by the RAC.

This poor unfortunate had the job of unpacking the trailer when it arrived
back in Edinburgh. The opening of the first damp thermal containing dry bag
caused the fastest escape I have ever managed. It is the one and only time
that a smell has made me physically sick.

So, again, thanks for that memory jogging Suzy ;-)

Graeme

I've had far fewer odour problems with my Ortliebs than with the first panniers which had a 'waterproof' cover. They are worth the money for anyone who is a regular commuter/bike shopper.

"suzyj" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I occasionally bake stuff (girlie alert!) at 180 degrees, in greasproof
paper (which is probably treated with different stuff to the little
saches of silica gel), and the paper doesn't generally burn (tho it
does go a little brown).

Cheers,

Suzy

Jeez Suzy, I've had that stuff catch alight in the oven when baking those
frozen Mcain chips....97% fat free variety by the way (it says so on the
pack), i always use that baking paper at 220C and usually no probs but one
certain day the fan in the oven blew up one end and it touched the elements
and caught fire. nothing major!!

DJ

geoffs said:

We have the complete set of Ortleibs in red which we use for touring, commuting and shopping. Here's a pic of the tandem loaded. It's so good not having to worry about the rain.

If they start to smell just wash them out with something mild and dry them well.

Happy commuting

Cheers

Geoff

Bastardo!

A sweet lookin tandem, obviously touring and in feckin Europe!!!

hate you, hate you, I'm gonna eat worms....