Handlebar bag with DIY removable support
 

I was in Walmart the other day and found a cool bag that I thought would be great as a handlebar bag:http://www.walmart.com/ip/Plano-Smal...e-Bag/16351089. The size is good, price is good, and it has Velcro loops to strap it to your handlebars. When I got home and installed it, it sagged into my brake cable, and that's when it was empty. That wasn't ideal, so I decided to fix the problem. I used an older bag I'd seen with a bent rod support and bungies as my inspiration. With a basic plan in my mind, I headed out to my local Ace hardware and found the perfect solution. They stock 3/16" steel rod in a 3' length for only $4 in change, which is perfect. I didn't want to scratch up my bars or stem, so I began looking for plasti dip to spray on there. Luckily, they didn't have it so I walked around looking for a different solution. I ended up getting some vinyl tubing with a 3/16" inner diameter in the plumbing section, and it worked perfectly.

The first step was to push the vinyl onto the rod. This was a pain, but some silicone sprayed into the vinyl tubing helped. In retrospect, champfering the sharp end of the rod would have also made this go easier. With that done and some rough measurements, I started bending. I used the handlebars and stem as my mold to get the radius of my bends correct. The rod was pliable enough and the vinyl tough enough as not to mar the bars or stem. The 3' length was slightly too long for my purpose, and I need to hacksaw about 4" off of one side when I was done. Some small bungies lashed to my front rack finished it off.

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone out there with a sagging handlebar bag. I think it turned out pretty good, was pretty easy, and works well. Thanks for looking, Mike.

http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps2899a2e3.jpg
http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...psceade1fe.jpg
http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...psa25c63d9.jpg
http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps691a038b.jpg
http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps0689209d.jpg
http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...psb0899d19.jpg
http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/x...pse345b836.jpg

Nice job on the bracket.

Thx Looigi, it was a fun little project.

An interesting modern-day take on Kirtland's old handlebar bag support from the late '70s. Nicely done.

Thanks for the tip!

I didn't know that was a Kirtland design, I just remember seeing one and thinking the bracket was cool. Thanks for the kind words.

Any time.

Also - I have in my "junk bin" some very thin aluminum tubing that came from old cheap backpack frames.
I'll bet this tubing would make a great version of this too.

From a frame something like this, available at a garage sale/thrift shop nearby.

http://www.100megsfree3.com/wordsmit...ing/pack01.jpg

@gerald-G: That would probably work pretty good. The only thing is that you are going to need about a 3' length to make it. Maybe 2' could have done it if I didn't support the bottom of the bag. Aluminum also can snap if you need to bend it more than once. I had to re-bend some of the sections as I did it due to alignment and symmetry issues. Hopefully you can make it work. If you do, put up some pics of your design, I'd love to see them.

I still have mine, though it's now pressed into service as a side-mount bag on my tadpole trike:

http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps10d3ceb6.jpg

In addition to the "fork" prongs of the bracket, which went through sleeves at the tops of the bag's sides, and the portion of the bracket that looped over the bars and under the stem, the bracket also had vertical "legs" that went down behind the bag, and their ends were hooked by a bungee that went around the bike's head tube in order to stabilize the bag.

It worked great back in the '70s until aero brake levers came along and their cable routing made it a little more difficult to thread the prongs of the fork around the stem and bars. Then when quill stems went out of favor, you could no longer count on stems to be horizontal, which pushed the bag up into unworkable (or at least odd-looking) angles. Which is a long explanation for why it's now on the trike. That and my road bike isn't a touring model.

CraigB- It's cool to see you figured out a way to use that bag. I can see where it would be tough to mount that on anything other than a quill stem. You know, you could always get a vintage touring bike to put that bag on. N+1 :)

Digging up an old thread...

Mike, thanks for the tip. Setting out to make my own - similar but slightly different. Will post a followup.
Thanks again,
Joe

Sagging bags?
Line them with correx.

I did a Different Bodge , step 1 was a waterbottle cage on the handle bar Mount , and spacers & long bolts thru the back of a Plastic stiffened Bag.

Worked so well when I had shop access the steel stem I Built had a braze on version with the 2 bottle bosses on the front of It.

Translate : Correx like the polyethelene Coroplast in this other english on this side ? Google seems to think so..

November 2nd Wednesday, there is bunches of it for free , just soiled with names and slogans of Political Campaigns.

Here's what I came up with:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psw3s4pfrd.jpg

And a blog post about the build and bag
http://crankbased.blogspot.com/2015/...g-support.html
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psvkp0njyi.jpg

Inspired by this thread...
 

Resurrecting an old thread. I was searching for a handlebar bag support for a small bag but was discouraged by how expensive they are new and I stumbled onto this post which inspired me. For less than $5 in materials and about 10 minutes of time I have a support that looks better than the Nitto equivalent (IMO) and cost about $65 or $70 less.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1ff257b845.jpg
DIY Bag Support
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c99b7588ae.jpg
Bag being supported

Man this is genius. Gonna build me one of these. I've been looking for some time for a decent handle bar bag to hold quick eats and a camera, but the mounts have always been too flipping complicated. This should work perfect.

Right - it's so simple and I like not having to "permanently" mount anything to my bikes. FWIW, nickel coated steel rod from HD or your local hardware polishes up nicely and should set you back less than $4. I had to buy a whole roll of vinyl tubing but I think it's the same diameter as air line tubing for fishtanks - I'm pretty sure that you can buy it by the foot from most pet stores. Still, the roll of tubing only cost about $5.

I love seeing create simple engineering solutions to problems many of us face.

Translated: I love it when you guys post ideas i can steal.

How many people have tried this type of bag support? I need to sort out a front bag for my commuter and looking at simple, cheap and removable options.

Jack the Bike Rack : https://wholegraincycles.com/ looks like a modern verion of this, built to fit modern handlebars and stems, but the DIY option above will be massively cheaper and sleek looking in my opinion.

Even though this is an old thread, that Jack bike rack is pretty interesting.

I don’t generally need a rack, I have one bike with an old Blackburn, but having the option to add a temporary one has its appeal.

I’m assuming it is for very light loads.

Thanks!

John

Jack costs $79, and it looks like you pay now and maybe get it later. That's a far cry from the Likebike23's solution.

There's a market for Jack, I'm sure, and I wish them luck finding it, but it's not a solution for now or for the last 8-9 years.

Mostly interested in how it handles load, what is the load limit for the steel diameter used to build it, side to side movement stability etc how it behaves in general use.

I have 6mm 316 stainless rod available to build this thing, which is slightly thicker and stiffer than the mild steel listed here (3/16"=4.78mm).

For the Jack rack, they list a 5kg load limit but insinuate that it could carry much more.
The Nitto F16 support is around the 6kg mark as well, from what I managed o find online.

It’s for bike backing rather than rando/touring

It looks so great and convient.

Not true. I modified my old Eclipse (similar to Kirtland) bag support, which had traveled many miles on quill stems, to work on a riser threadless stem on a newer (but still vintage) bike. I put the U end in a vise and tweaked the free ends with a bigass Crescent wrench until I had the bend I needed. Still using it.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...94af21d901.jpg