Stowage

I think the name of the game is to, with the fewest pieces of bike-luggage, be able to carry any variety of load ranging from groceries to camping gear without being weighed down by excess capacity. I'm certain that you could just buy a set of four touring panniers and be done with it, but that sounds expensive and heavy. And the goal is to avoid using a backpack, because that's just uncomfortable.

With the Trek, I had two camera bags designed for small cameras where the belt loop will reach around the handlebars, so I can do a super-lightweight shooting setup with one bag holding the camera and the other holding the flash. This let me have my camera at ready access for shooting. The problem is that the amount of stuff on the handlebars on my Fuji preclude this.

The wedge underneath the saddle is basically compulsory because that's where I keep my most vital emergency gear. My college bike had nothing in the way of emergency gear, but both the Trek and my Fuji have emergency gear. I got a Topeak expansible wedge with a cleat that bolts to the bottom of the seat that didn't fit on the Trek, so I meant to take it back and got a Trek branded wedge. Then, when I got the Fuji, I realized I never took the Topeak bag in and so I found that it fit the Fuji.

The old bike had a little mesh bag that velcroed between the top tube and head tube and a bag underneath the saddle, which worked for very light loads. It's actually really great for eating while riding because you can keep an energy gel and/or some cookies there. Most other storage solutions are a lot harder to get to while moving. I think I will pick up another one of those.

With the new bike, I've got a rack, which is really handy for when you aren't trying to race road bikes or whatnot. I got a cargo net to hold stuff down, which works astonishingly well for commuting.

I also got a trunk bag. Topeak makes excellent bags but they require a Topeak rear rack. Performance Bike had some trunk bags that didn't have a loop to clip a reflector on and gave me an unfinished feeling. Cannondale had a nice rack trunk that was decently sized and came with a shoulder strap, so I got that instead. I like that I can use it duffel-style to store stuff.

I'm still looking for a set of bags to hold the results from a grocery shopping trip or other reasonably loaded trips.