Originally Posted by
Ogsarg
Both bags showed up this afternoon so had a chance to try packing them. Wow. They are really small. I tried the Road Caddy first and was just barely able to get everything in there and the amount of force it took to get the zipper all the way closed was more than I was comfortable with.
The Silca Mattone looks about the same inside lenght and width but is noticeably deeper and that allowed me to get everything in there without worrying about blowing out the zipper. It is easy to put on/off the bike except the groove that accepts the boa cable is rubber and the cable has to be forced under the rubber lip making it finicky to get into the groove. Once in the groove, it tightens up nicely. I'm hoping I'll find a trick to that but if not, it's not coming off very often I hope.
BTW, I got a KOM tubeless repair kit. Similar to the lezyne but narrower and lighter. I don't think I could have gotten the Lezyne to fit inside the bag.
Almost forgot. Someone asked if anything could be accessed without removing the bag and I would say no.
Yeah, the Boa cable on the Mattone is a bit fussy to get back into the strap groove, but as I said before, I don’t go in the bag but rarely for emergency situations, and even then don’t have to take it off every go-in either. I keep my multi-tool in the the pocket of the Mattone’s lid part, and can slide that out and back in without renoving the bag. It would have made more sense for access ergonomics, I think, for Silca to have flipped the top/bottom orientation so the larger bin part was on the bottom when the bag is mounted so that one could get in there without need to remove the bag.
I do like the materials quality on Mattone; it cleans up quickly and nicely.