Not sure about the rest of you, but I keep my bike free of panniers and other useless accessories when I ride to work. Instead, I carry
a messenger bag. The superior option if one must be a mule. Why not panniers?
It’s not because of their grotesque appearance or even because they publicly shame your rig, forcing it into a depression and causing it to break down more often.
No, I resist panniers, because panniers are like the space under your stairs.
You can easily hide useless stuff in them… free from sight, free from guilt. This stuff can add up, but there is little incentive to get rid of it since you never see it and it’s hard to feel on you bike. With a courier bag or backpack, every extra ounce of weight gets noticed instantly, so you are motivated to cut down on crap and stay lean on your rig.
My recommended pack is the MEC Brenta Bag. I’ve been riding with one for five years.
This bag gets bad reviews from bike couriers because it can be leaky on long, rainy days and is not the most functional bag for transporting precious cargo across the city in monsoon season. These brave men and women basically need military grade materials to keep their stuff dry since they are out in the weather 8 hours a day.
But I am not a courier… just a humble roadie who uses his bike to get to and from the office. I ride 45 minutes to an hour each way
and do not need to stuff oddly shaped parcels into my bag and deliver them across town on the fly. The Brenta Bag will dry while I’m at work and I mostly stick clothes, tools, and sometimes a laptop into it. At just over 50 bucks, this is the best bag for the buck out there as far as I’m concerned.
The stock bag is a little lean on safety features so I made a couple of modifications by cutting up a safety sash and sewing it onto the front of my bag (actually, my mom did this for me ).
** Just to be clear… I’m talking about commuting gear here, not cross country / intercontinental bike rides. For these rides, I’d be banking on panniers for sure.
Pink Bar Tape 
Nice job, mom! Looks much safer with the tape.
Totally disagree with your choice of shoulder bag to pannier. Panniers are are out of the way, don’t move, lower your centre of gravity and take the weight off your ass/saddle. Of course if you have some latent Kevin Bacon fantasies (a la Quicksilver) then I can see why you carry a bag…
Nothing like shaming the Lemond by installing a rack and then hanging a satchel from it…
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