As a fan of all things inexpensive (aka cheap) I’ve previously been amongst the early purchasers of glorious items like the argos £400 full carbon road bike (still going faultlessly, albeit doesn’t see that much use), and the Voodoo Wazoo £400 fatbike (also operating faultlessly, although aside from a few ‘because I can’ mountain bike outings, its mostly used for commuting and casual rides with the missus).

So after a bikepacking episode where I was rocking the deeply unfashionable set of panniers versus my mates with the whole alpkit shop strapped to their bikes, everything was fine and the panniers were ok, although the weight distribution wasn’t ideal.

Nonetheless I like buying stuff and tinkering with bikes so I recently decided to take a browse on aliexpress and gamble with some bikepacking kit from there… and here are the fresh out of the box initial impressions!

7l Handlebar roll

Something litre seatpack.

Initial impressions are good – everything is where it ought to be, sensible things like a semi-rigid section to the seatpack under the saddle, additional fastening positions on the bar roll to accommodate various bar types, rubber flap underside the seatpack to keep off the worst of the muck.

So here’s a trial fit on the bike. I binned off the drybag that came with the bar roll and stuck my tent in the roll instead – it’s not fashionable to have a 2 person tent that stays upright in a breeze when bikepacking, but frankly once you include basha poles, it weighs the same as a tarp setup, albeit it doesn’t pack as small as a tarp (my tarp setup fits inside the 7l drybag)

The additional fastening positions on the dry bag also serve as fixing points for grenade pouches food / device holders within easy reach when riding – you can pick these up for £3-5 from most surplus stores. I didn’t encounter any problems with them obstructing bar movement when trying out some sharp cornering during my ‘down the street and back’ test routine.

Seatpack is straightforward.. in the pictures I’ve only chucked in a lightweight sleeping bag, so there’s plenty of room there for a set of evening clothes / cooking equipment. The elastic straps on the top I can see coming in handy if you want to keep a rain jacket on hand for the British summer

That pictures actually a bit rubbish as I’ve just shoved the rainjacket there.. here done with a bit more care

I’ll come back to this thread once it’s seen some real use and weather. Lingering questions for me are what to do with a thermarest – I’m leaning towards using a bigger drybag in the bar roll and putting it and the tent in that, and I’ll be eyeing up frame bags next, although I’m reticent on this as I still have them associated with the 80’s when I remember them as rubbish.

Areas of doubt.. the seatpack isn’t any easier than any other saddle bag to attach and remove – to be fair I haven’t seen any other manufacturers doing better on this, but I was hoping that bikepacking would see some improvement in this area.

The cost? £23 for the bar roll + drybag, and I think it was £30 odd for the seatpack. No affiliation, just my take on the kit.

Interesting. The seat pack looks like a rip-off version of the Revelate Viscacha. I’ve not used the Viscacha so can’t comment on how easy it is to attach/remove. I’ve the Wildcat Tiger which takes a couple of minutes to attach, the dry bag that goes in it is 30 seconds to take out, under a minute to put back in.

Being able to attach pouches on the back of the front roll is not something I’ve seen before, a different take on things like Stem Cells/Feed Pouches/Feed Bags which attach to the stem and bars.

Thermarests are pretty bulky items, the open cell foam they use precludes them compacting down. Might be worth finding a version of either the Exped Synmat range or the Thermarest NeoAir mats. I’ve an Exped Synmat and it’s just a little bigger both in length and diameter than a 750ml water bottle so goes into a front bag no problem.

only first and last pics showing for me. How about a link to the bags on aliexpress?

what they said as linky and pics i can see would be nice

Chrome wants me to sign in to see them if i open in a new tab

Hm. have shared the whole album, lets see if that fixes it.

Edit : apparently not.. heres a link to the whole album

https://goo.gl/photos/eKiuF48VivrqfRV47

Still no good on the pics front 🙁

Edit: But I can see the album on the link 🙂

Looks good. Might get one of the bar bags to supplement my alpkit kanga, which is great, but overkill unless your bag rubs on the front tire (i.e. any FS bike) on the singlespeed or road bike it’s just a bit bulky.

I do have a chalk bag permanently attached to my bar/stem now, it’s just so much more convenient (and cooler in the temperature sense) for wallet/phone/keys on a short ride than cargo shorts on a day like today with that, a saddlebag of tools/tube and a bottle of water in a cage.

Had to have a custom camera bag* made up for work the other day and it was a very reasnoble £55, if it’s any good I might ask if he could do some custome frame bags.

*as in a bag for a big camera to keep all the wires in and the rain out whilst filming, not a storage bag

Thisisnotaspoon – who made your camerabag? Any pics?

Great way of trying bikepacking. Minimises the risk if you don’t get on with it

Thisisnotaspoon – who made your camerabag? Any pics?

Not yet, should arrive next week.

Some nice reviews there mate and thanks for taking the time to post.

I feel your pain with Google Pictures.

It’s fantastic apart from the fact IT DOESN’T LIKE TO SHARE! Lol 😀

The bag looks like one of those Ural tour things I used to have.

Waggle waggle waggle.

£14 posted
Bizarrely I found this one eBay whilst browsing for something else.

Nice, been waiting ages for the Alpamayo harnesses to come back in stock, this might do as a stopgap until they do!

Sorry to bump an old thread but I just came across this when looking for some cheap bikepacking kit. Any feedback / long term review on this kit?