The other day Doc Homebrew arksed:
I am looking into getting a laptop computer (the boss is paying) as I am about to start working from home (one day per week). Obviously it will need to be fairly durable as I will be taking it on the bike. How do you go with your notebook on the bike? Any tips or suggestions? Any other features you'd recommend that I get with the computer? A quick scan of the web this morning leads me to conclude that there are just TOO many choices!!
A bloody good question! The short answer is I don't often take my computer on the bike, largely because I don't need to take it anywhere these days but also (I must admit) because I have concerns about it being damaged (it's my main working computer at home). That said, the notebook did accompany us overseas a few years back and I used to haul it off to classes, so I do have a few things to say about portable computers in general.
Computer considerations
Given that the good doctor has the chance to choose his computer with bike commuting in mind, I'd recommend the following:
- Buy a notebook that's physically as small as possible.
- Our PowerBook is as small as it can be and still have a normal sized keyboard (that's the main keyboard without arrow keys and number pad). I'm quite amazed at how many people have enormous (and HEAVY!) notebooks that they have to lug around. There's really no reason these days—you get plenty of computing power in small packages and if you need anything extra you can just plug into the USB port.
- For instance, I plug in an external keyboard and mouse, plus a small USB hub with a camera dock, USB key and external hard drive. (I should also use an external monitor for ergonomic reasons&heillp;) If you're regularly commuting with a computer, you might want to arrange a docking station both at home and at the office.
- Get a metal case if possible.
- Apart from the fact that our PowerBook looks dead sexy with its metal case, it's also hardier against the bumps and knocks of everyday usage. Nearly two years old and it still looks new—notebooks with plastic cases inevitably start to look shabby after a while.
- Get a protective sleeve for the computer.
- I have a neoprene "glove" from [STM][] that fits snugly over the computer, which means that I can shove it into my backpack and not worry about the odd bump or scratch. It's also water resistant, but I wouldn't go plunging it into a bucket of water.
- Protect the screen.
- If the computer ships with a sheet of packing between the keyboard and screen, keep it and keep using it. There's a reason why it's there and that reason doesn't go away when the computer is in use: on some models the keyboard can come in contact with the screen and rub it. I've also seen people use a thin sheet of felt cut to shape, but just about anything soft would do the trick.
- Get a keyboard condom.
This has nothing to do with bike commuting, it's just a tip for extending the life of a notebook computer. A faulty keyboard on a notebook means that the whole computer has to go in for repairs, so you need to look after it: get a plastic cover that matches your machine. I bought one on eBay for about $20 and, judging by the amount of dust and crud that piles up on it, it was worth every dollar.
Transport considerations
There are essentially two concerns about carrying a computer on a bike: You either put it in a pannier where it'll cop every road bump but will probably survive OK if you drop the bike; or you put it in a backpack where it won't get so many shocks but there's a good chance you'll land on it and break it if you stack.
There is plenty of advice and opinion on the web about this. The inestimable Ken Kifer seemed to favour carrying the computer on his back, but on the other hand Mr. Bike reckons there's no problem with popping it in a pannier. A discussion on Cycling Forums last year came down slightly in favour of carrying a computer on your back (although panniers had plenty of support).
And the DIY brigade might want to fiddle around with something like this DIY computer pannier.
Personally, I favour carrying it on my back: the constant shaking in the pannier can't be good for a computer. And practically speaking if you prang badly enough to break your computer while it's in a backpack, well you probably won't need to use it anyway for a week or two while your bones are mending!
The risks of damaging a computer while carrying it on the bike appear to be small and, at the end of the day, computers are replaceable but your data may not be, so keeping good and regular backups should give you extra peace of mind.
[Photo credits: Alamy, the Obsolete Technology Website and Dr. Bill Guilford.]
Thank you for this wonderful thread.
When I googled "Bike Laptop damage" I really didn't have such high hopes. But there are some great expert contributions here. I have been wondering about this topic.
I started cycling a couple of weeks ago and my laptop has just started giveing the blue screen of death, so I wondered...
On the other had it could have been the mouse softare I installed for my cordless mouse ...or something else entirely. Hard to tell. I strap my laptop down firmly to the back rack of an old steel bike. It must take a few bumps. On the other hand, it seems the crashes happen when it is hot. Tried swappig the motherboard so it is not that. I have been switching to carrying it on my back the last few journeys. I don'tlike to be top heavy though so I put everything else on the back rack. It seems to me cloth panniers or bike suspension would soften the laptop's ride a bit.
The OZZIE laptop journey is truly impressive - what type of laptop was it and what type of bike?
I've carried my standard Toshiba Tecra M2 in my panniers in an Ortlieb notebook sleeve for about 2 years with no problems. It's not a "tough book" by any means, but it's survived with no problems.
I can see the argument for carrying it on your back, but I've had no problems at all carrying it in panniers.
Good advice on the laptop front. Often, you can get by without toting the machine at all. I discussed this on my blog at:
http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/2006/10/solving-right-problem.html
I think Kent's point is right on the money: do you really need to transport the whole computer? Forget the potential for damage—how about the weight and bulk? Even the smallest computer takes up space.
All the data I need to transfer goes on a USB stick (a mere 128MB at the moment!), and when I need to access my electronic calendar and office email from home both of these are available to me over the web. I think I have a VPN option available too, but I've never needed it. (But I will be replacing that USB stick very, very soon—the question is 4GB USB stick or 40GB mini external disk? They both come in at about the same price…)
I gave up on a laptop for just this reason
I have an old laptop I use for travel when I occasionally really need to be working away from the office (1-2 weeks a year)
The rest of the time I use a desktop at home and one at the office.
I synchronise them using a portable hard drive (40Gb) which fits easily in my camel back.
I make a lot of use of Portable Applications suite and I have set-up both PCs to store "My Documents" on the removable drive.
I also regularly backup the "MyDocuments" folder from the removable drive onto both PCs so that if I should loose or damage the drive then Ill have one or two good copies still.
Latptops are great when you have to work wherever you are - on a train/plane/customers site etc.....but that's just not me -90% of work is at work - 8% at home and 2% elsewhere - so this solution caters to those requirements. Also the performance/cost/upgradability/reliability of desktop PCs still seems to be much better than for laptops.
Warwick's backup practice sounds pretty good to me: not too intrusive and therefore practical. And I like that idea of mapping "My Documents" to the external drive—I reckon I'll do that when I upgrade my portable storage (looks like the decision is made: it'll have to be a mini disk).
I forgot to mention portable applications. Mine include a text editor, a feed reader, an FTP client, and an image editor. Hmm, they seem to be as much in support of blogging as for getting work done…
This topic has been on my mind this week. I've been carrying a macbook in a pannier bag but now I have to get the optical drive replaced because it is out of alignment. The computer is fairly new and I've heard of optical drives being replaced before, and together with the fact that I've read lots of people using panniers without problems, I suspect that cycling wasn't the cause. However, just to be on the safe side I think I'll go back to a backpack from now on.
By the way, I put mine in a bubblewrap postpack - cheap way to keep it cushioned.
A postpak is a brilliant idea: certainly sturdy enough for a bit of rough handling, a decent amount of padding—and cheap and easy to replace when it wears out!
I commuted daily with my laptop to and from work in Amsterdam in just whatever bag I was taking to work that day, as did most of the employees at my office. Never had a problem and only came off the bike once in five years and the bag didn't hit the ground but landed on top of me.
I did also often see people in Amsterdam riding with one hand, twisted on their seat and with the other hand balancing a desktop on the pannier rack or child seat at the back. Well how else do you get it to the repair shop for an upgrade?
Utility cycling is much more the norm in Europe that in Australia. People will try to shift just about anything on their bikes! This is demonstrated very well in a great series of photos (and book) by Laura Domela, which I mentioned last year.
Well, I'm just starting to sort out how to best carry a laptop on a bicycle commute to work. So far the backpack is fine. I may get my fiancee an Ortlieb bag that is also waterproof (we live in Seattle).
A key variable is making sure you have or get a laptop that is durable. I used to work in sales at Dell computer. One of the more amazing things I was amazed to find out was the extensive testing that goes into the Latitude business notebooks. (not Inspiron, inspiron isn't nearly as durable). Here is a preliminary link about durability testing done by a third party... but there are more. Very regularly, these darn computers score really really well. Have i "drunk the Kool-Aid" and started to believe the company line too much? Maybe. But seriously, check out the testing that's been done out there and make sure you get a laptop that can handle the bumps over time.
I reckon that's a good point, especially if the bike riding precedes that purchase and transporting of the computer: check the reviews, ask around. Get all the computing features you need, but also get something that can bounce if it needs to.
Incidentally, I heard that one of Doc Homebrew's old panniers fell off—with a three-day old computer inside. Fortunately there was no damage…and new panniers were purchased the following weekend.
I'm a recent migrant to Melbourne, just discovered your blog. I commute by bike every day. On the laptop front, my 12" iBook was perfectly happy in an STM sleeve inside a drybag in a pannier for nearly a year while I did a 17000km lap of Australia... still going strong, in fact I'm tapping out this message on it.
Also worth checking out if you're commuting with a laptop is Arkel's pannier briefcase. Very nice. Ortlieb do something similar too.
Well if that ain't a good test of the pack-in-pannier method, I don't know what is!
With the feedback I've been getting on this topic, I'm getting the impression that portable computer gear is generally much hardier than we might think. And that's not surprising: I suppose manufacturers put some of their product development money into making the things more able to withstand the knocks and bumps of daily life.
Interesting observation on aus.bicycle: Adelaide bike commuter Chris had a prang while carrying a computer in a backpack. The computer and bike were unharmed but his kneecap was:
My strong suspicion is that without the backpack my knee would not have broken: I have come off once before without much damage.
Perhaps that kind of weight is not a good thing to have on your back while you're having a close encounter with the pavement.
I use a 15" MacBook Pro and have been taking it to and from work almost daily on a pannier bag on the back of my hard tail bike.
It rides in a protective sleeve oriented with the short side down, tall side up (portrait). Everything was ok the first 11 months, but since then I first had my keyboard and trackpad break (this seemed common to this model so I didn't attribute that the the bike), but now a month later the logic board is dead as well and in being repaired).
I'm 3 1/2 miles from work, but sometimes stretch that ride to 10 or more miles to get some exercise. On road or relatively smooth dirt trails. I like the pannier vs. backpack, so I arrive to work with a nice shirt that isn't sweaty (which it tends to be with backpack/messenger bag).
So I'm considering just using the messenger bag, and changing cloths as work. Other option could be to use pannier bag on front, where get the benefit of the bikes suspension. I've also thought that they should be some storage system that allows the computer to sit flat on the back rack, vs. hanging in a pannier bag.
I've wondered if there's a way to effectively suspend a notebook computer inside a pannier so that it doesn't take the knocks as hard, but I've no bright ideas on how that might be achieved.
Another option for David, to take advantage of the front suspension, might be to try a handlebar bag or even a basket.
Your comments about using a metal case really hits home with me. I have this HP Pavillion dv9000, it is a big notebook with a 17inch screen. Since it is my workhorse, so I have to be very careful with it. The only problem is that i have to carry it around from place to place, no matter how careful I have been, the plastic case has just split open. How aweful! and you know what, HP still have not ansered back to me yet. and my computer should still be under warranty!
I need to transport my kit (laptop, lunch, change of clothes) to work on my bike...but I have a child seat on the back (and a child in it) and so cannot use the rear carriers - does anyone know of any panniers large enough to carry this kit on the front??
It is a good choice to put your laptop in front. But For Me it is more comfortable to put it in a backpack and carry it at the back. It also prevent to much pressure to the device when carrying it in that way.
Yikes, that is a scary situation. What if you crash? I hope you've got some protective covering on it.
Comments
Phew, that's a bit of a baggage! It sounds like you've got to split up your load a bit. Maybe the computer in a slim backpack and other items in front panniers or a handlebar bag.
A more extreme option would be to get an xtracycle or a cargo bike.
Was a 12" G4 Apple iBook (which has been handed on to my Dad now I have a shiny new black MacBook). Neoprene sleeve case, and sitting vertically in the back of an Arkel front pannier (so it couldn't bump around too badly, but also wasn't strapped rigid). The Big Lap was on a Greenspeed GTE, but the same pannier and laptop combo goes great on the back on my Giant flat-bar road bike. Arkel do some lovely panniers with laptop slipcases built in now - their Briefcase and Commuter panniers look the business.