In my ever-ongoing quest to make the Ute the best it can be, I came across a problem. The bike came with one giant pannier when I got it. The big, waterproof thing that looks like a stoned pumpkin is great, but the problem is when I load it up all of the weight is on one side of the bike, making it so I basically have to ride sideways to keep from rolling over. It also makes standing the bike up under load basically impossible with the stock kickstand.
For Christmas, my wife got me a big box of vintage bike bags. I’m going to do a bunch of MYOG (Make Your Own Gear) shit with it in the future, but my first order of business was to balance the Ute’s load.
I got these cool canvas Norco panniers from a bygone decade. The problem was they were made for normal racks, not the insanely oversized Kona Ute rack/frame thing. So I had to make an improvement. I skedaddled up to the hardware store and got myself four tarp hooks, eight bolts and eight nuts.
The idea is to put the very big hooks onto the old panniers, and then it should be good to go. A nice easy afternoon project to make the Ute way more useful.
I measured out the proper spacing. Drilled some holes and bolted the new hooks on. To protect the paintjob, I put some Newbaum’s cloth tape that matches the bike’s paint job on the contact points, and pretty much called it a day.
The new panniers are super useful. I can run them both on one side if I want to also rock the big Kona bag, or I can have them on each side in either the forward or aft position, depending on what or who else I’m hauling.
I’m super proud of these, and am stoked to get out there and try em out on my next grocery run.