gugie 

ThermionicScott contacted me a few years ago to make a low trail fork to solve handling issues when using a handlebar bag. Recently he contacted me about a lightweight rack/handlebar bag solution to replace his handlebar bolt on model. Weather in Middle Earth being generally crappy in winter, he sent me the fork. I suggested contacting Dave Cain at Waxwing Bag, as I've collaborated with him on several bag/rack solutions for various people. Dave's not only a great guy to work with, his bags are top shelf, and you get exactly what you want. He's willing to work with you and your ideas rather than just push a particular style.

Scott's wants:

• Lightweight
• Not a ton of capacity - he likes to ride long distances and needs a place to put a rain jacket, some food, tools, etc., but is smart enough to know that whatever capacity you have, you'll use, so a big bag was out of the question
• Centerpull brake up front - might as well put centerpull posts on the fork if we're doing any mods!

A three-way email conversation started. It just so happens that Dave collaborated with Peter Weigle on a design now known as "The Wedge".

From Dave's website:

"His intention was to put lesser-used items like tools and a spare tube at the bottom of the bag, keeping the weight low and centered in the small footprint at the base. Jackets, food and other frequently needed stuff goes in the upper portion of the bag."

Dave suggested using super lightweight X-Pac material for this build. We started brainstorming with the goal of making as light a rack/decaleur/bag as possible. I started thinking of ways to integrate a decaleur with the rack to save weight. I figured I could bend up some lightweight tubing to combine the function of a rack "backstop" and decaleur:Dave suggested velcro straps on the side. This means the bag and rack needs to be designed together! We decided that the rack would be designed to work with the bag rather than the other way around. This also meant that Dave would ship the finished bag to me, I'd design the rack to fit.

3speedslow

I like when BF members get needy, great things happen. I will certainly be following along!

rccardr 

gugie 

Jan Heine's Compass Rene Herse offerings are a good baseline for super lightweight gear for the long distance cyclist. He had some special Gilles Berthoud bags made up that weighed just 266 grams. After cutting out all of the material, pre-sewn, Dave halved that amount.



Finished, with Coreplast stiffeners on the sides and bottom, the bag weighed 211 grams - still well under the G.B. superlight model. Scott might try removing the Coreplast and seeing if just loading it with gear will make it keep shape.



Meanwhile, I brazed some centerpull posts on Scott's fork. When the bag arrived I bent up some .028 wall 5/16in tubing to match the backside of the rack. From my decaleur building experience I knew that 6mm tubing would slide up into the 5/16" with that wall thickness - the rack attachment needed to be 6mm. Note also Dave's strategically located "hard points" of added leather to attach this bit.



I used the fork centerpull posts as a jig, and brazed short sections of that 6mm tubing to some rack tabs. They had to be bent to match the bag bit shown above, as the bag is a bit wider than the post width.


Brazing it upside down - I'll flip it around for final construction, but this allows me to make sure the backstop/decaleur is properly aligned to the rack.

A "deck" was made to match the width of the bag, support legs made to go down to the mid-fork connection points, and everything was brazed together, defluxed, cleaned.


test fit

Short sections of tubing were cut and brazed in place for the bag connection. I had some spare M5 PEEK screws from work - they weigh amost nothing, but are nearly as strong as aluminum. I couldn't find any matching nuts, so I used some stainless nylok ones. Total weight of 4 screws and nuts: 4 grams. Here's the backside of the bag installed:



Here's how it slides on and off the rack.



But won't it self-eject if you hit a bump? Not with these velcro straps.



But wait! That's not all! I dipped into my stash of MAFAC RAID centerpulls, polished up a set, pressed in new brass bushings and salmon Koolstop pads.



How'd we do on rack weight?



If you add up the Rene Herse CP-1 rack weight (168 grams) + decaleur (160 grams), a total of 328 grams, we've got it beat.

Special thanks to unterhausen for laser cutting a buncha stainless steel rack tabs and cutting me in on the deal!

BTW, Scott just had his first kid: Magnus. Now that's a strong cycling name!

3speedslow

Awesome!

The kid I mean, the bike things were a given!

Bianchigirll 

iab

Nice!

What do you use to bend the tubing?

merziac

I love it when this happens, a huge meeting of the minds, accomplishing something nearly impossible for mere mortals.

Well done and simply beautiful.

gugie 

For small bends, I use this $7.49 Harbor Freight tubing bender.



Note that tubing OD defines the minimum bend radius - try to bend it less, and it'll kink. Each of the "steps" is a different bend for a different diameters - 1/4", 5/16" and 3/8". I'd love to have a Di-Acro bender, maybe 2020 will be the time I break down and buy one.

For larger bends, I've made a few wooden "pulleys" of various diameters

TenGrainBread 

Very elegant! Food for thought design-wise.

iab

Too bad for me, I'm trying to bend some annealed 0.5" 304 with a 0.030" wall. A Swagelok is $250 and I only need to make one bend. I did make a wood fixture like you showed, but cold, it kinks on about a 2" diameter. My next step is to hit it with some acetylene and give it a go.

smoothness 

Did you try bending it with sand? I've heard it works pretty well in supporting the walls while bending. I've only used such knowledge with copper pipes ;D.

Drillium Dude 

What a cool result! Nice job to all the artisans involved in this project

Have you ever given thought to making your own flask-holder, or some sort of bag-carrier that could be mounted to bikes with seat tube bottle cage bosses? Nothing huge, but large enough for a few tools and a tubular tire?

Just thinking out loud...

DD

unterhausen

might be too tight of a bend for that. Thicker wall bends better. I really don't think heat is going to help you, just make it kink sooner. I have an Imperial eastman bender for 1/2." There are Parker and Ridgid benders on ebay most of the time. Search for RIDGID 408 Tubing bender Tube 1/2" about 50 bucks. You don't want the fully chromed ones, they are fragile.

I have a design for anything cages that I was going to get cut along with the tabs that gugie used, but it was delaying the order so I put it off. Still on the list of things to do.
Anything cages usually attach to three bottle bosses, but probably would work with 2

iab

I'm thinking that too, but the tubing is cheap and not the end of the world if it doesn't work.

But thanks for the lead, I found an "Imperial" https://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Tool-370FH-Triple-Header/dp/B002P8UUD2/ref=asc_df_B002P8UUD2/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309832851244&hvpos=1o20&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17806140878615261183&hvpone=&hvptwo=& hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021434&hvtargid=aud-801381245258la-436211223338&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=64417494871&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=309832851244&hvpos=1o20&hvne tw=g&hvrand=17806140878615261183&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021434&hvtargid=aud-801381245258la-436211223338

unterhausen

if you do the search I recommended on ebay, they are going for $50 and are a much better bender than the one you linked.

ascherer 

I LOVE this collaboration. Just brilliant!

gugie 

Both are available as commercial products far less expensive than I could make them for.

unterhausen

gugie, your rack is looking great, which tabs did you use at the brakes? How did you polish the tabs?

Salamandrine 

Wow. That's some outside the box thinking. (sorry, someone had to say it!)

I appreciate the minimal and elegant way you solved the problem, while maintaining the essential 1930's French tech look, methods and traditions -- slipped tubes instead of fancy hardware for example.

gugie 

Those are the 1/4" ones. The cantilever bolt is M6/M5 (Nitto type) so the hole didn't have to be drilled out. The ones that Velo Orange sells are M6 on both sides. When I'm building stainless steel racks I pre-polish everything while it's still relatively easy - interesting that there is a recent thread on polishing wheels! I also polish everything in between steps. After brazing all the rack tabs on, the sub-assemblies get polished. Once it's a complete rack it's hard to get the cloth wheel in all the nooks and crannies.

An additional step on the rack tabs is to remove the tiny jagged edges from laser cutting using a scotchbrite wheel. My polishing station has a scotchbrite wheel on one side and a polishing cloth wheel on the other. One of these days I'll build a small booth around it with a large fan and filter. It's always a mess at that corner of the shop.

northbend 

Very slick execution, gugie well done!

BFisher

This is beautiful! Well done all around, and thank you for sharing.

nlerner

Gosh, that bag is tiny.

ThermionicScott 

The rack and bag are truly works of art! I'd been thinking about showing it all off in a thread, but, well, these days I don't have as much time for BF outside of a glib post now and then. (See post #4 . )

It all really started during the winter of 2015/2016, when I took a look at everything on my overly-heavy rando bike. The KlickFix handlebar mounting system is well-made and works on a wide variety of bikes, but it puts the weight sort of high up. This bike has always had a tendency to shimmy when riding no-hands, and while riding no-hands is not a hard requirement of this bike, reducing the tendency would be nice for peace of mind. I've read that mounting the front load lower can help with that, so it got me thinking about front racks.

But aren't racks heavy? I didn't want to add to the weight of this bike, so I spent the next couple years in analysis-paralysis. Finally, I got talking to Mark about adding brazed-on brake posts to my fork to firm up the braking (my squishy bolt-on Weinmann 750s have been another source of unease). And then one thing led to another ("You know I make custom racks, right?") ("My buddy Dave Cain at Waxwing Bags could probably beat [397g] if you challenged him!") The combined weight of the bag and rack come to right around a pound, which handily beats the weight of my KlickFix bag.

It's been really fun to instigate a little constructeur-y challenge, and I can't wait to put everything together and ride it! That is, when I can find time again.