Oxford Lifetime P50R Panniers - Black

Well these are universal and a bugger to fit properly but am hoping they'll stay attached around Europe. They are quite decent once you get the stiffeners in, I had to cut around 7mm off the width and 50mm off the length to get them in. Great service by SBS, as usual,

Really useful bags..great fit and can hold a lot of gear.
Didn't use the small straps that come with it as they aren't very good for tightening and a bit dangly but replaced with bungees to secure to frame.
Absolutely solid..tested on 300 mile trip. Bags kept their shape, great colour matched bike.. I have a CBR Honda Blackbird.
As always great service from Sportsbikeshop would definitely recommend.

They arrived next day in less than 24 hours from ordering. The bags were flat packed & required the insertion of reinforcing strips in the base. These strips were oversize & required cutting and the sharp corners rounded to fit into the zipped pocket which still proved to be awkward. The actual fitting to my HondaCB500X was problematical due to the protruding pillion grab handles on the top box rack but the bags remained in position on a test ride. The product seems to be well made and good value at the discounted Sportsbikeshop price.

I've always used rucksacks but have been thinking about soft panniers for a wee while now. A recent issue of RiDE ran a grouptest and these came out top.
I happened to be browsing Sportsbikeshop and saw these were reduced to £120 (from £200!) so the timing was right!
They fit my ZX12 really well and the bottom is well away from the exhaust. They're nice and secure although I did make a bracket up to secure the rear straps somewhere. I'd almost be tempted to use them without the rear straps as they almost seem secure enough with the front ones but, you know, belt & braces etc etc.
The only real issue is the shape. I use a 40+ litre rucksack and these are 50 litres in total but because they're 25+25, they're not quite suited to the big A4 lever arch folders I sometimes carry in the rucksack. This is a very minor issue in reality though.
One big top is to persevere when fitting the plastic strengthening piece inside the bottom of them. Yes, they will fit. No, you don't need to cut them down at all. I used the same method as I do with a Pinlock, get one end in, get the other end in and then work the rest in VERY gradually! There's a lot of pulling and quite a bit of swearing but they will go in. I've found them to be showerproof without using the drybags but if the sky is black then the drybags gets used!

Positives : the waterproof liners in the bags are excellent in rain-this was proven during hideous 3 hr trip in rain.
Negative- they just kept sliding and had to keep checking if they were rubbing on tyres or going to slip off despite the Velcro (they didn't slip and rub). I suppose it depends what bike you have but these were not great. Maybe because the seat was narrow and they hung down with the weight. Previous Oxford panniers were really good but didn't have faith in these. Not sure if we will use them again for another trip
The service from sportsbikeshop was very quick and well informed- would definitely use sports bike again

Really decent bit of kit, can fit everything I need in it for a week away at least. Completely water tight with the inserts, super easy to put in and off my MT10. 5**