Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Was not just Cannondale, back in the 70s and 80s, all of the handlebar bags hung from a steel frame that was a cantilever off of the handlebar and stem. That steel frame was like a spring, you hit a bump and everything bounced up and down, the bungee was used to hold the bag down.
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And it took several minutes to remove from the bike or to re-install later, that made it a major hassle if you wanted to take your bag of valuables into the grocery store with you.
The steel frames were sized for a quill stem, I had to make my own steel frame that was wider for the threadless stem.
Despite those flaws, it seems to me that the steel cantilever was still a superior approach, in that it kept the bag out in front of the tops of the drop bars.
In my (admittedly suspect) memory, the removal procedure of "slide forward on frame, unclip, slide off" was pretty painless.
I've not done test fitting, but as far as I can tell from pictures it appears that even the Ortlieb and other clikc mount bags have just a tiny gap. And many seem designed for MTB bars, strapping on with zero space between bar and bag.
Does anyone still make the cantilever style front bags?