Soft or hard motorcycle luggage? This question will forever be debated! The aim of this blog post is not to tell you which one is best. Instead, we want to highlight the pros and cons of both. We hope this will allow you to figure out which one is BEST FOR YOU!
Both have clear advantages and disadvantages. Ideally you’d want to be owning both and depending on where you are going choose the appropriate option. But when going around the world you’ll need to choose which one will work best for you throughout your trip. You’ll need to prioritise what is most important to you: is it safety or security?
Hard Panniers
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Security | Safety |
| Convenience | Weight |
| Volume |
Volume
We started our travels off with Jesse Hard Panniers. They are very secure and have survived a ridiculous amount of bike drops! What I like about them is how much you can fit in. Get yourself a soft bag that supposingly fits the same amount (in liters) but you’ll never quite be able to fit the same amount in.
We know this because after purchasing our first Adventure Bike with hard panniers, we instantly wanted to switch to soft motorcycle luggage. We even found someone willing to trade our hard panniers for Wolfman Luggage. A pretty good deal for the other person as Jesse panniers are significantly more expensive! But we were baffled when we saw that it wasn’t just a straight forward switch. Unfortunately, we had to stick with hard panniers at this point! We simply had too much stuff and the soft bags wouldn’t hold the same volume the hard panniers could.
Convenience / Compartmentalising
What we both like about hard panniers is that you can not only carry considerably more but you can also divide everything up nicely inside. It’s way more organised and convenient, there is no denying it. In addition they are waterproof and didn’t require us to use a waterproof bag liner. Many hard panniers have waterproof bags inside, which also makes it harder to organise your things nicely. They also protected our kit, especially electronics like drone, gimbal etc. way better than any soft motorcycle luggage could.
The Biggest Issue with Hard Panniers
All this convenience however comes at a very high price of personal safety! If your leg gets caught up between the pannier and ground, you are very likely to break your leg or sustain a serious injury. Also consider that when dropping your bike with hard panniers, the weight is concentrated on a single point of impact! This puts more pressure on the frame and luggage rack, which in return is more likely to break. As I previously said our hard cases survived all the crashes but the luggage rack has had a number of welding jobs on the side of the road. They never cost more than 2 USD. But it’s obviously a pain to deal with. With soft panniers you are much less likely to have this problem.
Security
If you are leaning towards hard panniers, bear in mind that they are more secure BUT ultimately not impossible to get into! If someone really wants to steal your stuff, they’ll be able to break into it.
Soft Motorcycle Luggage
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| MUCH SAFER!! | Fits less stuff |
| Expandable & Customisable | Not as secure/ doesn’t protect electronics as well |
Soft Motorcycle Luggage is Undeniably Safer
We are riding two up and need every bit of space. But after one year on the road with hard panniers we finally gave in and decided to give up a bit of space and convenience in return for safety when riding off-road.
Soft motorcycle luggage is much more likely to absorb the impact of a bike drop and distribute it. Therefore you are much less likely to damage the frame or luggage rack. Likewise you are much less likely to break your leg or cause serious injury if your leg gets caught between the pannier and the ground.
It does fit less stuff as previously discussed but often comes with a Molly system which will allow you to expand and customise your motorcycle luggage set up. For sure your gear will be less well protected compared to hard panniers. Therefore it’s best to keep electronics or sensitive stuff closer to the bike frame and ideally place it higher up.
Soft Motorcycle Luggage is Much Lighter!
I think if you start off with hard panniers it can be harder to switch to soft motorcycle luggage. You’ll need to give up some space and convenience! But soft luggage is so much easier to take off the bike when you need to. It also weighs much less than hard cases. So it doesn’t weigh your bike down more than it needs to and is more convenient when moving in and out of accommodation!
There are some locks available for soft luggage, some better than others. But of course it’ll be a deterrent more than anything else. No doubt that it’s easier to break into your stuff compared to hard panniers.
Your choice might also depend on how much off road you are likely to ride. The more off-road you ride, the more likely you will be to go for soft luggage. At least that’s what happened in our case.
So which luggage solution works better for you?
Choosing the correct motorcycle luggage is just one of many decisions you’ll need to take when setting off on a round-the-world motorcycle trip. Read our FULL GUIDE on HOW TO PREPARE FOR A RTW MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE here.
Where do you stand on the eternal soft vs hard luggage debate? What would you choose for a round-the-world trip? Or perhaps you can share some useful experiences of why you’d choose one over the other? Please leave a comment below – I’d love to read your thoughts !
