Ashes to ashes, desk to desk - taking a laptop into work

To avoid de-railing Hulsroy's beautiful thread with commuting chat about getting a laptop to and from work

How do you take a laptop in?

I would love to drop my rack and use bikepacking gear but I take clothes (leave shoes in locker), laptop 50% of the time and lunch 30% of the time, of which the laptop is the difficult bit.

Current set up - bigxtop bag on a pizza rack. I bought the bag off here years ago, it's made to fit a 13 inch macbook (but i get a thinkpad 13 into it now) and does a good job. I keep the laptop in a neoprene sleeve along with way too many old paper printouts, it goes into the bag first. I don't worry about shakes and bangs - i think the padding is decent and it's all solid state now so not bothered.

I have a SQR slim which I tried once and I think I had a problem with the amount of stuff i could get into it but I'm going to try again. I also quite like having the weight on the front

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This setup is exactly what I wanted but failed at two hurdles.
1) Pizza rack no dice on my arkose due to mounts (or lack of)
2) 15" mbp has annoyingly wide footprint.

My latest thinking was getting a axle mount metro porteur and strapping my bag to it.

Would need some pretty flared bars to allow shifting without going to 46cm or so bars.

I can get my T480 into my Deuter Race backpack. Not much room for anything else though. The X2** series fit much better.

Have my 13" MBP in a Carradice or Rapha backpack when the little one is in tow on the Hamax

I stick my laptop in a ortlieb city front pannier, its a squeeze but it'll fit in and its super waterproof.

I had a soma porteur on my old charge that the same bag went on. 15 inch is pretty big though! I don't envy you that.

My bag nestles fairly snug in between my bars (Specialized hover 44cm)

I'd find it hard to go back to a backpack now

@Howard is that carradice on a support?

Used a Sealine Urban backpack, got a sweaty back and stinky straps
Switched to rack and panniers. Switched back to rucksack after a month. Didn’t get on with handling a bike with panniers.

Carrying laptop and sometimes clean clothes/towel

Backpack was better for the commute over the distance (25ish km)

Surly 24 Pack Rack + Chrome Duffle 40

Laptop gets thrown in without any buffer from bumps and jolts because it's a work laptop and lol I don't care.

@Howard is that carradice on a support?

SQR adapter bracket doobry

In the Carradice I run it in a case, in the rucksack I chuck it in neked and trust the waterproofing

reposting from Hulsroy's thread:
I do:
— Wald 137 or 139, prolly the latter if you want it to lay flat
— Porcelain Rocket basket dry bag (I live in the mid-atlantic US, water resistant doesn't cut it for the type of thunderstorms we get regularly)
— rectangle of cut up old sleeping pad for padding between bag and basket.

has worked pretty well, kept the computer off my back (which is what I was doing before), and kept it alive and functioning. Worth noting as @velohobbit points out, this strategy will likely run into issues if you're running drops and/or don't have a lot of vertical space to work with between the rack and bars.

I've always used panniers because my back gets too sweaty with a bag.

Ortlieb city rollers fwiw

I'm all about function over fashion, as pretty much anyone who has ever met me can confirm.

Interesting, i wonder if front loaded would feel any better to you. I hated feeling personally weighed down by rucksack (if that makes sense)

@Eejit that the knurled one? I would like handles like that has

Carradice and support for me

Carradice SQR tour or BigXtop bar bag normally.
The SQR is large enough for my laptop (MS Surface 6) and doesn't swing around as much as my Nelson does, even if it's mostly empty.

This one: https://www.beastybike.co.uk/bags/1783-chrome-front-rack-duffle-40-bag.html

Straps can be a bit faffy for getting it on and off the bike but overall I’m very happy with it.

I use one of those on my donkey bike. I just shove it in a plastic veg crate and bungee it down. The straps are a right faff otherwise... Great bag though!

Have figured out a way of securing it with just 2 out of 4 straps which makes it a lot less of a pain in the ass. Definitely had a few arguments with it in the early days though.

I’m gonna front load my Brompton on my new commute
I’ll let you know. The journey is shorter though.
I did the backpack commute for three years, of all the regulars doing the same journey, it was 80% backpacks

The real skill in the commute was having clean presentable clothes in the office ready to go.

SQR slim for me, like that it doesn't swing and can fit all i need

Just wanted to say nice bike!

Ah thank you ☺️

I have an SQR slim but it's only really used on my Brompton when I need more space than the front bag can provide

On my commuter bike I use a Topeak rack and a rackpack. I use the top section only when I'm riding and then fold out the panniers if I need to carry anything else, like shopping or my laptop.

Generally don't use a rucksack when commuting. Also have the Altura morph rucksack at work so I can stick the laptop in that and on the rack if I feel it needs more protection

This is a great computer packing set up! Perfect for rides like Liaise-Cascade-Liaise

I have a soma porteur and an ile rack bag, just fits a 15" HP zbook. Works great, the Ile bag is fantastic, so quick to take off and on.