On a recent over night trip with a group of riders, I packed up the panniers in the morning to head off for home, BUT for some reason, my R/H pannier locking handle just would not fully retract to the full down locked position, no matter what I tried, the handle would sit about 20deg above the locked down position, it was obvious something had jammed the internals of the case handle, and, without a T20 Torx Key and a 4mm Allen key I couldn't go any further to disassemble the whole locking mechanism. Fortunately a buddy (who lives near me) on his BMW R1200GS was able to strap the case to his bike and get it home for me.
After unscrewing all the internal Allen and Torx screws the mechanism was easily removed. The cause of my issue was obvious, a classic case of Murphy's Law, a perfectly wedge shaped stone, the perfect size to jam itself in the handle track (see photo). How this rock even entered the pannier is a bit of a mystery.
I've now added a T20 Torx Key and a 4mm Allen key to my bikes tool kit, just incase this ever happens again when out riding.
Cheers. :beer:
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