Tourist in MSN

The stock Carradice bag holders did not appeal to me. I bought the Pendle and the Nelson Longflap about 8 years ago. Occasionally use one or the other if I do not want to use a rack. The first time I rode a 200k brevet I used the Pendle and got really annoyed at my legs hitting the bag for 125 miles. Thus started looking for alternative ideas.

The bag in the photo above that you commented on, that is the Pendle.

Usually I had a rack on my bikes for riding around town near home, but that was pre-Covid. I often rode my bike to the gym and my gym bag was a pannier, might stop at the grocery store on the way home in which case I added a grocery pannier. But with Covid, I was grocery shopping only rarely and then going during senior hours, bought enough in each visit that I drove my truck to the store. And quit going to the gym, thus no need for gym bag pannier. So, I removed the racks from the bikes I usually rode near home. And then I added the Pendle so I could carry rain gear or extra water or lunch or whatever. It was usually only a quarter full at most, but the extra empty volume did not hurt anything.

Photo below from last spring when I was getting back on the road after most of the winter snow and ice was gone, this photo was taken on a 70 plus mile exercise ride, this is my light touring bike. The lake in the background was still covered with ice and snow, the Pendle was a perfect size to carry my extra layers as I shed them in the morning, and put them back on in late afternoon. The insulated water bottles had a mix of coffee and coco.



Three days ago on my way home from an exercise ride, stopped at the grocery store, filled up the Pendle with groceries. I simply find it is handy to have on the bike for riding around town.

I do not have a photo of it, but one day I put the Nelson Long Flap instead on the bike above, that day I was picking up a grocery order that I placed on line, I think I had about 10 pounds of pretty dense groceries, filled the bag. That saved me from having to put a rack back on the bike or take my truck.

The saddles on most of my bikes lack the saddle bag loops. Most of my bikes are fitted with a Brooks Conquest, that is a sprung version of the Brooks Pro, my road bike has a Brooks Pro, neither of those models has saddle loops but I can put the saddle bag loops on the springs. The Pro lacks springs.

Happy Feet on this forum has shown a few photos where he is using one of these:
https://www.carradice.co.uk/products...saddlebag-rack

That requires saddle bag loops on the saddle, I could see using one of those if my saddle had the loops.

I have some small brackets similar to these:
https://www.carradice.co.uk/products...l-bolt-on-pair

But I found them to slide too easily on the saddle rails. Mine are almost a half century old, that is how long ago I worked at a bike shop which is where I bought them, I used them to put one of those Cannondale Toot saddle bags on a Brooks Pro back then, they were robust enough for a small bag like that.

Nitto makes a Carradice bracket that is pretty expensive if you lack saddle bag loops.
https://www.benscycle.com/nitto-r50-...__870-179-11/p

I mentioned above my road bike lacks the saddle bag loops with the Brooks Pro. I tried an experiment that works pretty well, similar stem setup but I also added a DIY support I made out of 5/16 inch aluminum rod, plus a bit of clear plastic hose in a few spots. Pendle bag shown below. I did a test ride with a couple liters of water (2 kg) for weight and the aluminum rod supported the weight without bending, photo below.





The above would obviously not work if your saddle was a lot lower than mine. Bike frame is 58cm, I am about 6 foot for height, someone two or three inches shorter than me probably could not do this the way I did.

I know a lot of roadies like to stuff their jersey pockets full of stuff on longer rides, but I prefer to put that stuff on the bike.

I used the Nelson Longflap on my Pacific Coast tour, it was supported by the two Ortieb panniers it sat on. Photo below, stopped to make lunch.



I mostly used that bag for groceries, and it came in much handier than I anticipated. My touring partner tried to do the trip extra light, only brought two panniers. And when we stopped for groceries, he had less than one spare liter of room in his panniers, so I had to carry almost all the groceries. Sometimes it was overflowing, sometimes nearly empty.

Although the Nelson Longflap worked well on that tour, since then I have instead put a dry bag on top of the rear rack instead, quit using it for touring.

Since I often use these bags only partly full, I find that Coroplast stiffener to work quite well, but if the bag was usually 70 to 100 percent full, I can see where it would be better to leave it out.