As above. I’m planning on doing the Lôn Las Cymru (Cardiff-Holyhead) route in late spring as an intro to cycle touring. Probably, 4-5 days, haven’t decided as yet. B&Bs and cafe/pubs, rather than camping. Gravel bike plus bags, the latter of which I have not yet bought.
I want to go fairly lightweight (a change of clothes, riding gear, spares and essentials, emergency food) but would be interested to know what sort of capacity (litres) would be reasonable and how do people arrange their luggage. More litres on the bar bag than seat pack? Other way around? I’m kind of concerned about the potential sway from seat packs.
Also, should I look any further than Alpkit for bags?
I know there are lots of you who’ve done this type of thing, so any advice gratefully received.
Cheers in advance!
You will get many different answers
Road or offroad? It would alter what i took
A decent seatpack will not sway. Personally I do not like anything on the bars. Other love bar mount. Carradice bikepacking seatpacks are very strong and stable but heavy. I have one
Road and occasional dirt road/pack horse road. Nothing too gnarly according reports.
My personal preference would be a dry bag strapped to the top of a rack with most stuff in. There will be bit of a weight penalty, but no sway - also the added simplicity of just grabbing one bag from the bike when you reach your stop. A dual ended dry bag (like the Alpkit one) is good for keeping jackets, food etc easily accessible at one end. Voile straps or similar are worth the investment for lashing.
I'm not a fan of big bar bags as they get in the way of hand positions (or worse, shifting) on drops. Something like the Alpkit Toploader / Straightcut bagel bag is about right for snacks, camera etc though.
Finally a small partial framebag is good for anything heavy (tools usually) but you might need to switch to side loading bottle cages
Hopefully some food for thought, but there's no right or wrong way really. Alpkit stuff is all perfectly good IME
for me that sort of trip would be two small ortleib panniers - low CoG and easy to get on and off for going into B&Bs also loads of space for lunch etc on route and easy to pack. 25 l in total. small top tube bag for bits and bobs . Two bottles on frame mounts. I do not like bar bags at all but I am very much in a minority
I went old school Carradice bar bag and rack pack. Washed and (semi) dried riding kit each evening. Fantastic route.
Thanks.
That looks a like a nifty, minimalist kind of set-up.
Nifty weather too!
+1 for TJs suggestion, 2 small panniers work really well. We have done multiple tours with 2 paniers and a rackpack between 2 bikes.
Have done similar trips with panniers and a variety of bikepacking set ups (and just rucksacks) so have a few thoughts:
- I don't like the way a bike handles with panniers. Lots of people do but I've never managed to get used to it.
- if you're riding drop bars then they might determine how much you can carry on the bars.
- looks like your route passes lots of places with bike shops so you don't need to go mad with spares.
- seat pack sway isn't a big deal
- don't worry too much about the volme differential front/back as long as you can pack them so they're not wildly different in weight.
- if you really can't be bothered getting a whole new setup then a rucksack, while not ideal would be totally fine as long as you keep it small (prob 25l max for this kind of trip)
I think I could get everything into under 10l for that kind of trip.
My personal preference would be a dry bag strapped to the top of a rack with most stuff in.
I started off that way, and that's the worst of both worlds for me; extra weight of the rack and still a faff to get things in and out of.
I've made it work with a little 'fuel cell' type bag on top of the top tube, a bigger 'half' frame bag below the top tube, a reasonable sized seatpack (I think 10l but nowhere near full) and my back pockets.
If Wales is anything like Scotland you don't want to be packing jackets away, have your waterproof rolled up in a back jersey pocket if possible, much less hassle to take it on and off if showers are passing through.
Mrs_oab and I do:
Bar bag each with waterproof, snacks, phones, sun cream and smidge in.
Small frame bag with tools, pump, inner tube.
Small single pannier with spare evening clothes and spare riding gear, midge net, toiletries and chargers. Dependent on season and forecast this bag does swell with extra fleece/down and waterproof trousers.
If mrs_oab gets her way I also add a second small frame bag and shufty things around so we can also take book, hairbrush, all the homemade cakes etc
Mrs NBT is very keen to ride Lon Las Cymru, and we'll likely do it in the same way we've done pervious trips - this is from the latest one, a week's loop around Normandy / Brittany and the south coast of England
We've done several trips with this setup
all the homemade cakes etc
Sounds like a woman who should be listened to at all times.
I’m kind of concerned about the potential sway from seat packs.
It's not an issue, just make you pack anything heavy at the saddle end, but one of these helps:
Exo-Rail | Anti-Sway Saddle Pack Mount (alpkit.com)
But if you're looking at all new then a pack with a cradle is worth a look.
Bar bag-wise if you're standard bars you've not a lot of width, so pack appropriately - and one of the reasons I run a wide flare bar.
I run a frame bag all the time on my gravel bike, so would run one doing the trip you're doing.
Panniers - not a fan, but purely based on a pal using them for the Cairngorm Loop and being turfed off when they caught on heather plus made it doubly awkward to get his bike over fences/locked-gates.
For my last 6 day trip I had:
Wee bar bag. Wallet. Phone. Snacks. Sunnies. Face masks (remember them?!).
Small panniers (25l total I think) - waterproof, lightweight trousers, t shirt, fleece gilet, socks, sandals (the horror). Kindle. Chargers. Toothbrush and toothpaste.
Small panniers could have been substituted with dry bag strapped to the rack.
Have fun!
Mrs S and I went full Planet X for ours, the dry bags kept things dry and everything stayed attached.
Fork bags were great, didn't notice them at all, held loads of important things like my wifes hair straighteners.
Stem bottle bag was best as a bin for snacks at the start of the day and as a bin as the day went on. Meant no sticky wrappers in my pockets. Most of the clothes went in the bar bags, that was the only thing my wife had on her bike, worked better on mine than hers as I had wider, flared bars and AXS gears. The AXS meant that I didn't need any inward motion on the shifters.
Negatives, the bar bag harness doesn't look like it'll last more than 5 rides like that, but i was having rather a lot of fun off road on a gravel bike.
2 x PODSACS Waterproof Handlebar Barrel Bag Blue
SKU - BAPODWHBB-BLU
2 x PODSACS Tarpaulin Fork Dry Bag and Rack 4 Litre
SKU - BAPODTFB
1 x PODSACS Waterproof Saddle Pack Black Large
SKU - CCPDWSB-BLK-LRG
1 x PODSACS Stem Bottle Bag
SKU - CCPODSBB
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I am really tempted to try out a couple of fork bags and a smaller rack back - I am going to treat myself to a new rack this year, and I think I might try this setup out.
Nice to hear the differing opinions. Plenty of food for thought here.
I used to commute with panniers, so nothing against them. However, I'm tempted to go for a rear seat pack, maybe with that exo rail, just because it would be transferable to a full sus mtb too.
I have bike packed with a variety of set ups: seat pack, panniers and Tailfin Aeropack (the best but expensive) on the rear and bar bag and fork bags at the rear.
For the trip you are proposing I’d opt for a saddle pack, bar bag, fuel cell and maybe a small or medium frame bag. That set up will allow you to spread the load nicely and have easy access to everything.
As @scaled say above the Podsac bags from Planet X are good quality and great value for money.
Where are you based, @bonni? If you are anywhere near Newport you’re welcome to come and have a look and trial of the bags I have.
Many thanks for your advice and posting images of your set-ups.
Appreciate the offer to have look at them in the flesh. I am actually 20 miles from Newport (Abergavenny) so that could be an option. Cheers.
Not a problem. Drop me a DM if you want to pop down. 🙂
This one shows everything I used for a 3-day ride across the South Downs Way.
Podsac seat pack with cooker, change of clothes and light jacket (Probably ¾ full). Blackburn Outpost HB Roll with tent, sleeping mat and quilt. Restrap top tube bag with tools, spare tube, spare hanger and power bank. Restrap stem bag with snacks.
Replace the HB Roll with a small bar bag or frame bag and should easily fit everything you need for your trip.
After starting with the Podsacs from Planet X I moved onto (up?) to the Blackburn ones which are basically cradles' (bar and saddle) for drybags. The cradles work well plus not limited to the drybags it came with (but these did both have air-filters which work brilliantly to enable them to compress).
Also recommend Alpkit's custom framebag - just sent them a template and within a week I'd a custom framebag that fitted my Scandal frame perfectly; used this on the Badger Divide.
I used an On-One bar bag and a 25L Ruck Sac for a 3 day 'Calderdale Heads of the River' tour last summer. Like you're planning; stayed overnight in hotel/pubs, minimal packing with usual gear - waterproofs, evening change of clothes ride food, and had room to spare.
We did 10 days through Italy last year with the setups below. Staying in air BnBs.
We started with alpkit bags some 10yrs ago, but have moved to restrap. The restrap are more secure and are nicer made IMO.
I swear by the exo rail from Alpkit. You can also use it on any seat bag with done imagination. Stops all sway which without it drives you nuts.
I always pack with a 3 quarter bag (room for a bottle on the bike still) which weighs nothing and holds what you require.
I didn't really like that you'd have to faff with saddle setup every time you installed/uninstalled the exorail.
There's a few other solutions for anti-sway. Saddlebag swaying from side to side is really annoying, I don't know how some people put up with it.