Panniers, for those who do not know, are the green bags on the back of my bicycle pictured above. But, those are not just any panniers. Those are the only panniers I have ever owned. I purchased them 34 years ago when I was 15! (Yes, I am 49)
I hung around with a large group of guys at a place called Potters Playground in Pawtucket in my youth. Among this group was a subset of us into outdoors stuff. Someone, Jack McConnell I suspect, got the bug that we should get into long-distance bicycle tours. Talk led to action and seven of us planed and took a 6 day bike trip from Pawtucket to the Kancamagus Pass in NH. It was an amazing and formative experience to say the least.
After a few other trips, the panniers got hung up (not thrown out) and life proceeded on. Fast forward about 25 years and our family of 4 was looking for some new adventures. I remembered the bike trips of my youth and out came the panniers. (Fortunately, Ed’s Mobil in Pawtucket, which supplied most of my biking equipment 25 years earlier, was still around and had one more set of ‘old school’ matching panniers and front bag for Laura. Dylan and Nick got new ‘modern’ ones which they still have, to the best of my knowledge, but, that is their adventure.)
During April vacation in 2002 we did the 184 mile C&O Canal (Chesapeake and Ohio) bike trail from central Maryland to Downtown Washington, DC. The following year we made up our own loop trip leaving from Kitty Hawk, NC south to Ocracoke Island, took a ferry to the mainland, and road back north along the coast to Kitty Hawk and our car, about a distance of 200 miles. Both trips hold wonderful memories and are willed with adventurous tales of turtles, tunnels, windstorms, and much, much more!
After some sporadic use, life proceeded on again, and back the panniers went into storage. Then along came this plan. I spent many hours preparing for this adventure sorting through our equipment to replace or take. Among many tough decision, the panniers was one of the most difficult. The panniers were classic, old school style. Lots of pockets, still mostly waterproof, in pretty good shape, and all those adventures and memories.
Clearly they made the cut and we anticipate many new adventures along the way. The question using these panniers raises in my mind these last few days is this: how or could one envision the many chapters that could evolve from something as simple as saving up some hard-earned, teenage money to buy a set of Coleman panniers and matching front bag in forest green from Ed’s Mobil on Broadway in Pawtucket, RI all those years ago!
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