Of course, following the crippling back pain, there had to be a solution that would put the weight on the bike and not on my back. As reluctant as I am to add weight to my carbon bicycle, I obviously can’t use the backpack any more.

One of the reasons I’m reluctant is that, at the weekend and on holidays, I want to ride my bike with as little on it as possible, so I really didn’t want to fit a complicated pannier system that would be difficult to fit and remove. And because the main weight I’d be carrying would be my laptop, a pannier system would end up being imbalanced. So I hit the YouTubes and the interwebs and I did some research. Topeak offer a range of solutions, including a rack that fits to your seatpost and a selection of trunk bags, including one with fold-out panniers. Tantalisingly, they used to have an actual laptop bag, but that no longer appears to be available (in the UK, at least).

A similar, but cheaper, system is available from Ibera, and its this I went for, as their biggest trunk bag looked like it might just be big enough to contain my laptop. The first step is the seatpost-mounted commuter carrier, which gets around the lack of rack fixings on my bike. It looks kind of precarious, but (it says here) it can support up to 10kg, which should be more than sufficient for my needs. It attaches where the seatpost meets the downtube, and comes with a couple of shims you can insert. I used the thicker of the two shims, hoping it will be right. The rack itself can be adjusted – I pulled it back to its furthest position to accommodate the big bag.

Step two is the trunk bag itself, which attaches to the rack with a snap-on system. It has a lightly padded interior and an ABS plastic base which looks pretty solid. It comes with an optional carry strap and has one big pocket with three smaller ones around the outside, plus one on the top. There are also some bungee cords to tighten around a rain jacket or something, and inside there’s a zip compartment in the lid. It seemed as if it ought to be able to contain what I carry to work: laptop, wallet, keys, pen, spare cartridges, maybe a bottle of chocolate milk. It could also potentially contain a shirt and tie, maybe even a rolled up pair of trousers, but let’s not go overboard.

The true test was, could it contain my 13″ MacBook Pro? The dimensions seemed to indicate that it might. And it does – just. But that’s no bad thing. The snugger the fit, the less the thing is going to move around. Above you can see it in its resting place. The zips, once you go past the first corner, do up pretty easily really, and it seems fairly secure. Of course, I haven’t tested this setup over the bumpy British roads on the way to work, but we shall see. If you have a 15″ Pro, that won’t fit, and nor might the older non-retina design with the built-in DVD drive. If you have one of the new 12″ MacBooks, that’ll go in easy, as will the 11″ air (you’d probably need extra padding). Given that the next-generation MacBook Pro will probably be thinner and lighter, the future is bright.

Getting on the bike with the bag on is no easy feat if you have issues with your hips and back. Getting my leg over was a stretch. But I am in a bad way at the moment, so maybe it won’t be too much of an issue. I can also ask someone to snap the bag on for me once I’m on, I guess.

So now the Port Designs GOLED backpack will be going on the eBay. This Ibera solution, by the way was pretty cheap: the seatpost rack was just £22, and the trunk bag was £34. So £56 all-in, about half what the Topeak solution would have cost.