Restrap Rolltop Canister Bag review

Well, it is better than no bar bag at all I suppose.

• Brand: Restrap
• Product: Rolltop Canister Bag
• Price: £74.99
• From: Restrap
• Tested by: Hannah Dobson for 5 months

Pros

• Foam pads and cam lock fastener are secure
• Para cord and cord lock fastener works well as a strap
• Good waterproofing

Cons

• Strap closure needs a redesign
• Adjustment options for width of handlebar fasteners
• An internal zipped pocket and key loop for valuables would be good

I have a soft spot for a bar bag: a big one loaded up with sleeping kit signals an adventure is afoot. A small one, on the other hand, can be the gateway to choices, and freedom. With a bar bag up front, you can carry essential tools without committing to backpacks or special cycle clothing with pockets. Your ride might just be a quick spin… but it might turn into something bigger, if you’re in the mood. With room for a few snacks – or en route baked goods score – a small bar bag gives you the promise of flexibility, without the burden of commitment.

For many years I’ve enjoyed using the Californian brand Outer Shell’s DrawCord Handlebar bag. It remains excellent, although it’s not the best in really wet weather, and while its boxy shape is great for a camera, it’s less ergonomic as a shoulder bag to carry around. The Restrap Rolltop Canister bag looked to be an interesting prospect for similar purposes, but with a more slimline form and increased wet weather capability. Not surprising, perhaps, for a company with its factory in Leeds, Yorkshire.

The Restrap Rolltop Canister bag attaches to your bars with a pair of straps with cam lock fasteners. Quite similar in design to the Outershell but with added foam pads, which is reassuring when navigating round cables. The straps are in a fixed position (the Outershell ones can be adjusted width-ways) and I found them to be rather narrowly set. There’s not much room in there for anything other than your stem. I invariably found my bell, phone or light mount got in the way of easy fastening. Like the Outershell bag, there’s an elastic loop to go around your head tube. If that pulls it closer to your frame than you’d like, or at an angle (for long stems) then Restrap sells a ‘Bumper Bar’ at £39.99, that will hold the bag away from your head tube. There is a light mount loop on the front of the bag, although curiously it is the opposite direction to most light mounts found on backpacks and bags.

The access to the bag uses a Fidlock buckle to hold the roll top closed. However, the strap the buckle is on is still pretty long even on its shortest setting, meaning you can’t cinch it up tight to help keep any jiggling of contents to a minimum. There’s also no rubber O-ring to hold it in place, so it tends to work its way long as you ride – although it did stay fastened and firmly attached to my bars, even on rough descents. On every bike I used it with, the strap was long enough to dangle down and into my front wheel if undone – long enough that it could reach my spokes. I am less than keen on my bar bag attempting to kill me by ensnaring my front wheel in the event it does pop loose, I forget to fasten it properly, or I try to access a snack mid-ride. Restrap told me that it’s not designed for access on the go – which is fair enough, though it’s something I personally want in a bag like this. I also can’t help but think that simply flipping the attachment system so the long strap comes towards the rider instead of into the spokes might remove the risk of spoke entanglement and give some potential for on the go access. But I am not a bag designer – perhaps there are other reasons why this can’t be done. There are a couple of mesh side pockets, though I found them too shallow to be secure enough for anything I might not want to lose – they’re better for stuffing things like wrappers into. An internal zippered section for things like wallets or passports would be very welcome, as would a loop for securing keys.

The roll top is, like every other roll top bag I have encountered, a thing of deception. If you roll it up, the wet stays out, but you’re also carrying around a few inches of false promise. All that extra fabric is just bulk and weight, not actual carrying capacity – if you have it unrolled so you can get close to the claimed 4 litres of capacity, stuff just falls out. I tested the actual capacity with some plastic kitchen containers and found that I could just get the roll top folded over (and the closure strap was at its absolute maximum extension) when there were 2×1.3 litre containers in there, though not with enough of a fold to be sure of keeping the water out. To get the kind of double roll you need to keep things waterproof, I could really only fit in 2 x 850ml containers. Yes, there was room for a little more if I’d squashed jackets etc in rather than cuboid food containers, but regardless it’s quite a way short of 4 litres, and only a little above the 1.5 litre capacity of the zipper fastened Restrap Canister Bag.

If you remove it from the bike, you can sort of use a bit more of the bag volume with it unrolled, if you deploy the para cord and wear it handbag style, dangling at your hip. However, the cord attaches fairly low, and to the rear of the bag, meaning that if your contents are a little top heavy, the bag tends to spin on the axis of the cord fastenings and turn upside down. It’s best carried – and indeed comfy to ride with – when the bag is cinched up tight and slung on your back, and the paracord pulled snug round your chest and shoulders.

Overall

I hate to be a naysayer, especially when it’s a product from God’s Own County and people I know work there. But, overall, I can’t recommend this bag. It is better than no bar bag at all, but not better than other bar bags designed to double up as nipping into shops type shoulder bags.