Hi Geoff. In my experience I find the old saying to be true, when loaded touring it's best to have the heaviest items at the lowest point on the bike, and since rear racks tend to be higher on the frame, the heavy items went into the bottom of the front rack.
Also, handle bar bags are small, and only really meant of day rides.
The only other thing is that I occasional have found that with panniers low I sometimes can't make turns as sharply as I normally would, and have to make wider turns. As the bike is pretty heavy under these conditions, it's wise anyway.
I did a tour around Melbourne back in 1990, and have found memories from that trip.
Stay Cool. (It's 39 degrees in San Francisco at the moment).
Tom Harriman San Francisco, Ca.
>From: geoff duke <g.duke@civenv.unimelb.edu.au>
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: [CR]Handlebar bag vs front panier geometry
>Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:31:50 +1100
>
>This may be more a question for the framebuilders list but seeing as many
>on topic french bikes have front racks I was wondering if anyone on this
>list can tell me what the difference, if any, there is between a bike made
>to take a handlebar bag and a bike made to take front paniers.Bicycle
>Quarterly regularly looks at bikes that are designed to take handlebar
>bags.Will those same bikes handle the same with front paniers ?
>Geoff Duke Melbourne Australia