Serfas PB-2B Pannier Looks Great but Needs DIY Fixes

We really, really wanted to love this pannier. It's a lovely look, and the fabrics were a perfect fit for our wooden bike. Unfortunately, the design has several major issues, described below. As delivered, this really isn't a pannier for your bike, but more of a hard-to-fit, drag parachute that automatically opens at speed while riding. All of these problems are fixable for someone with a modest amount of sewing talent (and machine). Think of this bag not so much as a ready-to-go pannier, but rather an 80% complete kit to which you'll add a few parts to custom fit for your application. First, fitment of this pannier to a standard bike rack is pretty difficult. As-delivered, you get a hard-to-reach velcro loop on back of each pannier, and 2 velcro loops on top of the center section. Neither fit well, and the top-mounted loops look really, really awkward if you bend them around to fit underneath. The handle and design of this bag begs for quick removal and installation, such as while shopping for a few odds and ends. The velcro attachment system makes this really difficult, however. To solve this problem, we sewed 1" webbing and parachute buckles to the back of each pannier, with the mating buckle attached to our rack. You'll see this in the pics. You may need something completely different, depending on what your racks can accept. Elastic cord + a cord adjuster may work, for example. For attachment on the top, we again used a 1" piece of webbing along with velcro to make a loop. Note that the bag material, even with the including stiffening material, still sewed just fine on our good sewing machine. The final problem is that the bags themselves, and especially the lids, are NOT well attached or snug to the panniers. As delivered, they open up nearly 90 degrees in the wind. It becomes a big, effective, drag parachute. The buckles for closing the bags are great, but for some reason, the manufactur sewed these nearly to the top, where you can't snug the covers down tightly. The solution is the remove the upper stitching, and allow the buckle to to be moved nearly to the bottom of the bag. From there, you can cinch down the covers. Hopefully, the manufacturer will see this review, comment, and pictures, and change the design. It's just a matter of where they decide to sew the attachment strap to the bag: as delivered, it's way, way too high and loose. All the modifications mentionned above are shown in the pictures here. Again, this bag is good looking and unique; you just need a bit of elbow grease to modify it to something that's actually functional. 5 stars for looks and material; 2 stars for design as delivered.