Bike Commuting- what to do with all your stuff?? (Page 3)

My typical commuting pattern is drive to work Tuesday morning (Mondays are my day off) and take all my work clothes for the week.  Leave car at work and commute home Tues pm.  Then commute both ways Wed, Thurs and Friday morning.  Drive home Friday afternoon.  It doesn' always work out that I can commute by bike everyday, but sometimes it does. 

I've never had problems rewearing shorts on the days I commute both am and pm.  But my commute in to work is only 5 1/2 miles and typically takes me about 22 minutes in the morning.  On my commute home, I often take a longer route anywhere from 10-25 miles depending on how much time I have. 

Diane

I just saw this thread.  I have the same problem with my pack.  I keep some towels and shower stuff at my office.  In my pack I have my laptop and whatever paperfiles I need so I can work at night (not much more than 30 sheets), shoes, shirt, pants. 

The pack is so heavy it throws off my balance very badly and puts at lot of weight on my shoulders if I dare to get into aero.  I am able to look back by looking down below my arm through my armpit.  The weight doesn't come from the clothes but from the laptop.  I am not crazy about having the computer anywhere but strapped to my body and I wrap it with the clothes to help guard it in case I get hit. 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to drop weight on what I have to carry.

1) can you leave your work shoes at work?

2) any way you can put a rack on your bike, even a seat-post mounted rack? That will give you some place to put some of that weight and keep it off of your back. Those "rack trunk" bags can hold quite a bit.

3) agreed the laptop is safest in your backpack, but if you get hit I would think a damaged laptop would be the least of your worries.

I'm hesitant to carry my laptop in my rack trunk (or panniers if I had them) just because I think there might be too much shock & vibration loading for the computer. So it's laptop in the backpack for me.