Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

TECH NEWS

Ortlieb QL3 quick release system for urban luggage

New system leaves the gubbins on your bike, not your bag

Ortlieb are showing off their new QL3 locking system at Eurobike, which is designed for urban use. It's a three-point fixing system but most of the stuff which actually does the fixing is permanently attached to the bike. That means it's not as versatile as a standard pannier system but the thinking is that most commuters will be using the same bag from day to day.

The main benefit is that the amount of paraphenalia on the bag itself - and the amount that it sticks out - is drastically reduced. All that's left are three small fittings that marry to pegs on the bike-mounted fitting system and lock securely into place. It takes a bit of practice to seat the bag but once you get the hang of it it's easy enough, and the system feels solid enough to not ship your bags on the inevitable potholes. When you need your bag back it's a quick tug to release it. QL3 looks like it'll need some careful setting up though, you need to get the positions of the three fixing points just right for them all to engage.

The QL3 system is currently on panniers and some city bags, though there's still plenty of the city range that still uses the more standard mounts. We were quite taken with the basket panniers, and also the rack-top basket with a drawstring cover, perfect for the shopping.

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

Add new comment

5 comments

Avatar
dave atkinson | 13 years ago
0 likes

yeah, i need to look more closely next time... show blindness kicking in and it's only day two  1

Avatar
STATO | 13 years ago
0 likes

Wow, never heard of Racktime and looking on their website the stuff is really nice. Infact their Handlebar bag is way better thean ortiebs (it looks like an ortlieb with all the extra features you wish it had when using it), might have to get one of those.

Thanks for the tip Saku!

Avatar
Sakurashinmachi replied to STATO | 13 years ago
0 likes
STATO wrote:

Wow, never heard of Racktime ...
Thanks for the tip Saku!

 1

You're welcome.

Avatar
Sakurashinmachi | 13 years ago
0 likes

As STATO says, I think the reviewer has misunderstood how these work - the photo of the attachments clearly shows that the two top knobs are fixed in position on a rail and the bottom one on a frame coming off the rail, so they don't need to be individually positioned: it's the rail itself that mounts to the existing pannier rack and can be moved around.

Also, most of the photos are of Racktime bags and baskets, not Ortlieb, despite the headings. Racktime is owned by Tubus and there's some kind of tie-up between Ortlieb and Tubus. They also DON'T mount using the QL3 system, but the excellent Racktime system. I have the DoubleIt bags and the racktime rack and it's so much better than Topeak's system or Axiom's that it's not funny.

Avatar
STATO | 13 years ago
0 likes

It actually looks like itd be dead easy to setup, the 3 pins are connected and attach to the rack with 2 bolts and a standard ortlieb lower hook, so 5min? If i didnt already have a full set of ortliebs id have one of those in a flash, infact i still might!

Latest Comments