Choosing bike panniers: Arkel Orca 35

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In this post I'll try to cover why I chose the Arkel Orca 35 bike panniers and my first thoughts on them directly after receiving them.

Why Arkel

My envisioned usage is:

• Commuting to work (30km per way)
• 3 day bikepacking trip with distances 165 km / day...
• 3 week bikepacking/touring trip from Sweden to Stelvio and Venice this summer
• More commuting to work and other bikepacking stuff that are not planned

Countless hours of research on different sites finally convinced me to buy Ortlieb Front Roller Plus... But then I spent even more time reading and found that Ortlieb seemed to have gone cheap and changed their bombproof parts to fragile based on various comments on mainly reddit (example).. I guess to sell more parts. So that quickly made me cross out Ortlieb from my short list...

I did not like the plastic look of Vaude or Thule panniers so that kind of removed them from my list as well... Call be picky.

Finally found this small Canadian firm called Arkel that seemed to get good reviews... Not many reviews, but good. So I decided to double the money spent on pannier bags and cut off on other stuff for the trip. Hope this gamble pays out in the long run!

• FartBike Republic: Arkel Rollpacker 25 Front
• Reviews over at Modern Bike: Arkel Orca 35 Front or Rear Waterproof Panniers (Pair) Gray
• I ordered directly from Arkel: Touring Panniers

Size consideration

I chose the 35 liter pair option. Arkel also sells 25 liter and 45 liter variants. One seemed a little too small for my needs and the later a tad too bulky. So I chose to go the middle way. Also, the 35 was tagged both front and rear pannier whereas the 45 was tagged rear only. I guess I could have mounted it on my front wheel but.. Yeah, probably a little too big.

My goal is to fit everything in these two bags and then strap my tent sideways over the Surly Front Rack.

Color options

There were two options, red or grey. I went for the grey variant as I want to be able to keep a low profile if needed.

Unpacking

Seems to be the correct product in the box... Arkel Orca 35

Arkel Orca 35 showing the mounting mechanism. Looks classy

At this point I started to panic. Only 1 Arkel Orca 35 bag in the box. I checked the included packing-order and it stated (pair).... What's going on here?

Unrolling the top of the bag to open it. Material feels like good quality (based on my limited experience with pannier materials). I.e not flimsy, but quite sturdy.

Opening the top, can see the side pocket. and glimpse something under it.

They packed one bag into the other to save space, genius. Feels a lot better : )

Arkel Orca 35, fitted on the Surly Front Rack on my Kona Sutra on the wall for storage

Unboxed and fitted on the bike.

Now I'll just have to wait for the weather to clear as spring turned back to winter here in Sweden.......

Update 2019-04-03, Early spring riding

Been riding with these to work when bike commuting. They do feel sturdy. The lock mechanism keeps them on the front rack and no clanking noise or anything that annoys.

I've managed to keep out of rain, but used them in -5°C, but there was no issues there. I was a little afraid that the fabric would become hard in below freezing temperatures but I did not notice anything like that.


Disclaimer
I bought this product myself and this is my opinion on them. I am in no way affiliated with the manufacturer of this product. Neither did I get paid to link to any site that is mentioned in this post.