As I've probably wittered about earlier, I was away cycling for three days with Kirby Girl last week. It's the first time I've ever been away overnight with a bicycle and hope it is the start of many such journeys to come. That's hardly relevant to my little grump here and I'm sure I'll go into more tedious detail about our excursion in future posts. The reason I'm writing this post is because...
As mentioned in an earlier post, I was using Karrimor Aquator panniers on my bike. Whilst I found these panniers generally to be excellent (although I've only got two other cheap sets of panniers to compare them with), I managed to lose one of the little 'disc locks' on the first day. For those not familiar with these 'disc locks', Karrimor uses a system whereby one attaches a little plastic disc (the flat of which faces outwards) to each side of one's pannier rack. The back of the bag has a shaped plastic area with slots which this disc can slide into and this holds the bottom of the bag firm, thus stopping it wobbling about. That's the principle anyway but it isn't so good if one of them drops off. I'm willing to accept that was likely my fault for not screwing it on properly and no manufacturing problem. However, it seems impossible to get a replacement without buying a set of panniers. I phoned the phone number listed on the Karrimor website but the nice fellow there told me they don't deal with Karrimor produce any longer and the company itself is rather 'in limbo'.
There's a warning for you, to be careful if you're thinking of buying any Karrimor panniers at the moment. Despite all that, I have to say I didn't notice an awful lot of difference from not having the 'disc lock'. I guess the right pannier probably made an annoying tapping noise a bit more than the left but I never felt it was insecure or thought it created any kinds of problems. Maybe you shouldn't give a damn about getting replacement parts at all.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I was using Karrimor Aquator panniers on my bike. Whilst I found these panniers generally to be excellent (although I've only got two other cheap sets of panniers to compare them with), I managed to lose one of the little 'disc locks' on the first day. For those not familiar with these 'disc locks', Karrimor uses a system whereby one attaches a little plastic disc (the flat of which faces outwards) to each side of one's pannier rack. The back of the bag has a shaped plastic area with slots which this disc can slide into and this holds the bottom of the bag firm, thus stopping it wobbling about. That's the principle anyway but it isn't so good if one of them drops off. I'm willing to accept that was likely my fault for not screwing it on properly and no manufacturing problem. However, it seems impossible to get a replacement without buying a set of panniers. I phoned the phone number listed on the Karrimor website but the nice fellow there told me they don't deal with Karrimor produce any longer and the company itself is rather 'in limbo'.
There's a warning for you, to be careful if you're thinking of buying any Karrimor panniers at the moment. Despite all that, I have to say I didn't notice an awful lot of difference from not having the 'disc lock'. I guess the right pannier probably made an annoying tapping noise a bit more than the left but I never felt it was insecure or thought it created any kinds of problems. Maybe you shouldn't give a damn about getting replacement parts at all.
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