Pannier on one side only: lazy habit or smart weight math?
A guy at the rack outside my office in Boise told me he always runs one pannier on the drive side and never bothers balancing, and I admit I copied him for a year. The other camp says uneven load tweaks your steering over 10 miles and wears your rear tire crooked, which sounds right until you remember most of us carry a laptop and lunch anyway. I tried both for two weeks on my 7 mile route and honestly felt almost nothing, maybe a tiny lean on the fast downhill by the river. So which is it, are we overthinking single side carry, or is that slow damage adding up? Tell me your setup and whether you ever got sore shoulders from it.